YouTube Unveils New Look to Increase Channel Views, Subscriptions

The redesign aims to help users find their favorite channels and “subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.” By encouraging more users to subscribe to the YouTube channels they love, YouTube will be able to share 10 times more ad revenue with its partners.

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Date published
December 07, 2012 Categories

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YouTube has unveiled a new look to help users find their favorite channels and “subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.”

“Last year we began to make it easier to subscribe to the channels you care about by introducing a Guide on the home page,” wrote Josh Sassoon in a post on the YouTube Blog. “When you add subscriptions to your Guide, you organize YouTube around what you like, available whenever you watch YouTube. Today, we’re taking the next step by bringing your subscription-filled Guide with you across both the site and all devices, as your best source of what to watch on YouTube.”

All YouTube users need to do is subscribe to their favorite channels and the Guide lets them know when there are new videos waiting for them to enjoy, suggests the latest and greatest channels they might like, and shows them what their friends are sharing across the web. They’ll also find the Guide and their subscriptions on apps on hundreds of millions of devices including Android, iPhone, PlayStation 3, and Google TV.

Since more than 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month to watch over 4 billion hours of video, it’s important that the videos stand out. In this new layout, users will find the most crucial elements are front and center when they watch a video: the video is right at the top of the page and the subscribe button, social actions and video information are all combined directly below the player.

Playlists are now available to the right of the video so users can browse through while they watch. They’ll also see this cleaner and simpler design across the entire site.

If you’re a video marketer or YouTube creator, then you can learn more about these updates on the YouTube Creator Blog. In a post there, Alandha Scott said, “The new site design will help you build a bigger, more connected audience by improving new channel discovery, simplifying subscriptions, and keeping your fans plugged in and aware of your new videos no matter where they are.”

Scott outlined the three key changes for video marketers and YouTube creators:

“We know change isn’t easy, so we don’t take it lightly,” Scott wrote. “Our experiments show that the new design drives subscriptions and keeps fans better connected to their favorite content.”

So, what’s driving this change?

The best answer to this question was provided back on Feb. 27, 2012, by Salar Kamangar, CEO of YouTube and Senior Vice President of Video at Google.

“If you see a dog on a skateboard video, the CPMs, the cost per thousand impressions, are about $2,” Kamangar said during an interview with Peter Kafka of AllThingsD. “Now, if you package that as part of a dog lover’s channel or a skateboarding interest channel, that same video can command a $20 CPM.”

In other words, by encouraging more users to subscribe to the YouTube channels they love, YouTube will be able to share 10 times more ad revenue with its partners.

And why might that be a priority during the holidays?

Back in April of this year, the YouTube team updated its partner eligibility requirements. Content creators could become YouTube partners simply by enabling their YouTube accounts, and monetizing at least one of their videos.

Since then, YouTube has gone from 30,000 partners to more than 1 million partners from 27 countries around the world. That’s not a typo.

So, if YouTube can help more than a million partners monetize their channels, then everybody is going to have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

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