Say hello to the redesigned YouTube.com: Love it or hate it?

I watch YouTube quite a bit, so you can imagine how confused I was when I started watching a video and noticed that everything on the site has changed. Is this good or bad?

I suddenly realized today that the familiar nooks and crannies of one of the world’s most-used site have undergone a major overhaul that streamlines features and puts the focus on content.

YouTube announced last Thursday that it would be make changes to video pages to improve the viewing experience. Among those changes were a new interface that automatically creates playlists, makes it easier to browse recommended videos, permits searching for videos to add to queue without leaving the page, and a comments section that combines text and video responses. The Official YouTube Blog called it “one of the biggest redesigns in YouTube history,” and for good or bad, they’re right.

YouTube has been testing this new design in sneak peeks and gathering feedback from select users. YouTube says that these features are opt-in but I never pressed anything to make the switch, so I’m not sure how it started. To turn on the new view, click here. If you don’t like the change, click here to get back to the old YouTube.

Here’s a gallery of images highlighting the new ‘Tube:

Filed Under: Online Video
Tags: Online Video, websites, YouTube