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Thursday, December 4, 2008

A New, Wider YouTube Template

The template of Google-owned YouTube got an overhaul. The page is now stretched wider, with the former top tabs being more like a single-element navigation bar, integrating the search box at the same horizontal position. Just recently, YouTube rolled out wider video boxes (causing a black left and right margin on a portion of the videos).

On the one hand, the recent YouTube changes might cause a more cinematic, higher quality feel for YouTube, optimizing the layout for those with bigger resolutions. On the other hand, the videos might convey less of a home made, quirky, embeddable, I-can-do-that-too mood – it’s hard to tell.

In other recent “YouTube growing up” news, the video site’s official blog published a post detailing stricter standards on adult-ish content and video still choices. You can still pick a still from several options, but “but they will no longer be auto-generated from the 25/50/75 points in the video index”, YouTube says. Also not too long ago, YouTube launched a feature which would allow a commenter to read their comment back to them (using text-to-speech) before posting, perhaps aimed at cutting down on the more casual, throw-away or rude comments. And by now, even the US president-to-be uses YouTube as his own communication channel.

[Thanks Jérôme!]

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