As you may know, YouTube has a new channels design in the works. It was actually supposed to be out on July 15th, but was postponed (not for the first time). Murdok recently ran down a nice sized list of new features that YouTube will be including in this new design here.
Last week, YouTube updated users about the delay, as well as some more features. “So when’s the new date? That part’s a little trickier – rather than try to predict it, we’d rather focus our time on taking care of the above list. But we’ll announce the new date no less than 2 weeks before it happens – and yes, it’s still coming this summer,” the company says.
They also ran down some goals to accomplish before launch:
– Fix some browser-specific layout bugs – in particular, IE6 has a few issues right now
– Allow you to default your channel to “grid” view
– Allow you to re-order your uploads & playlists
– Some other small things, including fixes for some of the other bugs you’ve helped find (such as grid view not always working in IE)
Yesterday, YouTube issued another update, citing the following as new things released:
– Module transparency can now go all the way to 100% (though we cry just a little bit inside whenever someone puts fully transparent, hard to read text on a crazy background)
– You can now right (or middle)-click on videos to open them in new tabs, or in new windows
– Playlist titles were getting truncated a little too soon before – should be longer now
– Grid view should now always work in IE
– And a few other bugfixes
The new channels have of course been available in “secret” beta. This is where the feedback has come from so far. The new design has got to be close to going mainstream now, and is just one example of how YouTube has really been stepping up its game.
Let’s review a few other pieces of YouTube news from the last several weeks:
1. YouTube is working on 3D Video.
2. YouTube has doubled the size of what users are now able to upload at once. This means we will see longer and higher quality videos.
3. YouTube is becoming more of a resource for news content
4. YouTube has launched a destination for movie trailers
5. YouTube has expanded advertising options and is “closer than ever” to profits.
As you can see, lots of things are happening at YouTube. The site is already far and away the most popular video site on the Internet, and it appears that it will only continue to improve.
