You may notice something a little bit different when you go on to YouTube for your daily dose of cat videos today.
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The world’s largest video-sharing network has rolled out a major redesign which places original channels front and centre.
In an official blog post, the company says that the aim of the redesign is toy help people “find the channels [they] love and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe”.
The changes mean that the video is now right at the top of the page and the subscribe button, social actions and video information are all combined directly below the player.
As The Verge notes, the redesign reflects what Google has been doing with all of its properties of late.
The site now includes the same grey and white colour scheme found on the likes of Google+ and Google Now as well as the same sparse layout.
But subscriptions are clearly the most important part of the redesign. According to YouTube:
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.
That the site is now pushing original content in its redesign is hardly surprising. It has, after all, spent hundreds of millions of dollars partnering with celebrities and rising YouTube stars alike to produce original content.
Making that content as easily accessible as possible just makes sense.
