Tocquigny - A Measured Approach

YouTube Revolution: New Interface, Marketing Implications

Posted 03.31.2010 by Craig Saper

Later today, video sharing giant YouTube will launch a global modification to the user interface design of their video pages – a strategic initiative to increase time-on-site.

The Google-owned company revealed the redesign in January, although some changes were, at the time, still up in the air. While the specific modifications are in the hundreds, the following is a list of the most pertinent:

• Video description module has been relocated to underneath the video player
• The amount of “recommended videos” has more than doubled and its placement is more conspicuous
• Autoplay functionality has been built in to the “recommended videos list”, effectively allowing the user to view more relevant videos with few necessary clicks
• 5-star video rating system has turned into “thumbs up”/“thumbs down”
• Channels, channel videos and the channel subscription button are now prominently featured on the video pages
• A video’s view-count is double in size and on click, expands to a full public YouTube analytics module
• More intuitive functionality is offered at user’s mouse hover state
• “Highlights View” – offering users a summarized view of top-rated comments, uploader comments, video responses
• Various updates to YouTube’s semantic video search engine algorithms

Click on image to view larger version.

As you can tell, video discovery and simplicity were the key tenants of this upgrade – encouraging users to spend more time on site, and naturally, watch and discover more videos.

What does this mean to businesses? YouTube is now, more than ever, the community destination for video sharing. Also, web video content continues to develop as one of the most consumed types of content produced not only by entertainment companies and independent content creators, but also by businesses. Video, whether branded entertainment, brand films, product walkthroughs or user generated content, has become the new marketing collateral.

YouTube is not only a venue for video hosting, but offers a perfect setting for customer and prospect communication, discovery and engagement. Add in its implications to brand and product search optimization and its prominence in the social content sharing realm, and we have ourselves one of the most powerful communication tools of all time.

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