YouTube follows the trend
Posted: Friday 17 December, 2010
Will Davis
YouTube has announced plans to transform its homepage, as part of its efforts to make the video-sharing website more social. Although the site is already classed as a social network, the nature in which fans can discuss or find relevant content often leaves it with much to be desired in the 'social stakes' when compared to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
Although the site is clearly very popular - with 24 hours of footage uploaded every minute, and over two billion videos watched per day - YouTube has had a problem in attracting users to spend more time browsing the site and its homepage. Instead, users tend to view the odd video through the site or in embedded videos on othersites, rather than spending a prolonged period on the site and building ontheir profile. With the new homepage, YouTube hope to reverse this trend and increase its social standing.
One of the leading new features will be the introduction of a Facebook-style newsfeed. Although not acting in the same manner as the Facebook feed, a variety of suitable videos will be displayed through the home page, whether it be those favourited by the user, or those uploaded by some of the users' favoured subscriptions. YouTube's 'recommended videos' has also been revamped to offer the user a greater quantity of videos from the offset. Users will therefore have more access to avariety of videos through the homepage, rather than leaving the user to trawl through the site or to follow recommended videos on the side of each individual video page.
This revamp is also likely to have a positive effect on brands looking to utilise the site. Videos by the same brand will be listed together on the user's home page, and another video will automatically upload once one has finished, allowing continued exposure to a brand's promotional videos. With users now presented with a host of similar brand videos through the homepage, brands are likely to find that suitable promotion of their YouTube channel will lead to increased exposure thanks to the redesigned homepage.
With YouTube's popularity it may not have needed to try and encourage more users to the site, but this new homepage is likely to have as much of a positive effect for brands as it will for individual users.
