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Anyone who's known me for awhile knows I spend an inordinate amount of time on YouTube wandering around the gaming community watching LPs, reading comments, and generally being entertained. However, on March 31st the YouTube video page layout was overhauled and for the last two days I haven't had much incentive to continue my normal routine. You can find the official blog post on the YouTube blog right here:
youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-video-page-launches-for-all-users.html
First of all, I was well aware of the beta that was going on and voluntarily opted in several times to get a feel for the changes. However I never liked using it and always reverted back after an hour or two. So when I hear people flippantly saying that those who are upset, which includes me, because it's change and people "automatically hate change" and I'll just get used to it after awhile I get angry - ragey really. I've been trying to "get used it" for several months.
I still don't like. I'll get into nitpicky details later.
Secondly, who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to make such a major change on March 31st - the day before April Fool's Day. Many posters to the blog thought it was a prank. Given the history of April Fool's internet pranks releasing any major product or overhaul on that day is beyond foolish. It is a complete planning failure.
Not only that but the only announcement that the roll-out was coming is right here. That's right, a post in the YouTube help forums on Google, in the partner section where very few of the admittedly few people who went to the forums to begin with would see it. To add more on to the pile of bad decisions the announcement was made on March 30th almost as if to further ensure that no one would see it in time. There was no system-wide announcement, no banner, no indication to Joe and Jane Average YouTuber that the migration was coming. I was browsing at the time myself and quite literally went from one video with the old layout to the new one with one click as I moved to the next video of interest.
I was confused to say the least and immediately went searching for the familiar opt-out link; now MIA. When I returned to the main page I looked down, as I habitually do, to see if the YouTube Blog had been updated and it had with the entry linked at the top of this post. I clicked and read it and the few comments that had already been posted then tried to return to the YouTube mainpage.
Only to see this: Http:/1.1 Service Unavailable
That's right. Mere minutes after unveiling their new revised page layout access to the service went down in spectacular (if temporary) flames. After this was resolved the site went into immediate maintenance for several hours.
That didn't bode well for you see YouTube has this very bad reputation for breaking things during maintenance. As I was perusing the blog and the forums it became abundantly clear that, yes, things were broken. Many things were broken. So much went wrong with the new layout it was a wonder that it worked at all.
Where to start? Well, let's see.
Users of Safari 3 found their browsers locking and crashing when mousing over certain page elements.
Compatibility with Google Chrome broken. (particularly amusing since it's another Google product long touted on YouTube itself)
Internet Explorer 7 would crash and terminate upon opening a video page.
Compatibility with the iPhone broken. (there are also reports that the Wii and PS3 web browsers can no longer load the video page)
Partners found themselves unable to upload new videos due to an error in the Revenue Sharing form.
That's just a quick list of bugs related directly related to the overhaul. There are many, many other issues stemming from the changeover that are not bugs. They're just bad design. I'll get to them in a follow-up post.
youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-video-page-launches-for-all-users.html
First of all, I was well aware of the beta that was going on and voluntarily opted in several times to get a feel for the changes. However I never liked using it and always reverted back after an hour or two. So when I hear people flippantly saying that those who are upset, which includes me, because it's change and people "automatically hate change" and I'll just get used to it after awhile I get angry - ragey really. I've been trying to "get used it" for several months.
I still don't like. I'll get into nitpicky details later.
Secondly, who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to make such a major change on March 31st - the day before April Fool's Day. Many posters to the blog thought it was a prank. Given the history of April Fool's internet pranks releasing any major product or overhaul on that day is beyond foolish. It is a complete planning failure.
Not only that but the only announcement that the roll-out was coming is right here. That's right, a post in the YouTube help forums on Google, in the partner section where very few of the admittedly few people who went to the forums to begin with would see it. To add more on to the pile of bad decisions the announcement was made on March 30th almost as if to further ensure that no one would see it in time. There was no system-wide announcement, no banner, no indication to Joe and Jane Average YouTuber that the migration was coming. I was browsing at the time myself and quite literally went from one video with the old layout to the new one with one click as I moved to the next video of interest.
I was confused to say the least and immediately went searching for the familiar opt-out link; now MIA. When I returned to the main page I looked down, as I habitually do, to see if the YouTube Blog had been updated and it had with the entry linked at the top of this post. I clicked and read it and the few comments that had already been posted then tried to return to the YouTube mainpage.
Only to see this: Http:/1.1 Service Unavailable
That's right. Mere minutes after unveiling their new revised page layout access to the service went down in spectacular (if temporary) flames. After this was resolved the site went into immediate maintenance for several hours.
That didn't bode well for you see YouTube has this very bad reputation for breaking things during maintenance. As I was perusing the blog and the forums it became abundantly clear that, yes, things were broken. Many things were broken. So much went wrong with the new layout it was a wonder that it worked at all.
Where to start? Well, let's see.
Users of Safari 3 found their browsers locking and crashing when mousing over certain page elements.
Compatibility with Google Chrome broken. (particularly amusing since it's another Google product long touted on YouTube itself)
Internet Explorer 7 would crash and terminate upon opening a video page.
Compatibility with the iPhone broken. (there are also reports that the Wii and PS3 web browsers can no longer load the video page)
Partners found themselves unable to upload new videos due to an error in the Revenue Sharing form.
That's just a quick list of bugs related directly related to the overhaul. There are many, many other issues stemming from the changeover that are not bugs. They're just bad design. I'll get to them in a follow-up post.
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