TechnoMagicians Blog

I can see that YouTube has been testing some changes to what it presents on one’s Home page. This seems to be across all platforms I’ve tried (iPad, AppleTV, web browser). The new changes come in now and then and then it reverts to the old format. My guess is they are testing this by making it available to a subset of users for a period of time.

I hope that during this testing they discover that these changes are HORRIBLE.

They are certainly horrible for me. What used to be a very good feature on the Homepage has all but disappeared. It was a Recommended section. It constantly provided some pretty decent recommended video’s based on my watch history. It actually worked pretty well. And even allowed me to discover new channels for me to subscribe to. I don’t know how I would find things otherwise cause I’m not one to just browse for anything on YouTube. I’m not watching trending video’s or anything else that they might splash in my face. I only watch for things I am subscribed to or searched for based on my interest at the time. Plus the recommendations would help to discover new stuff along the lines of my interests.

So what have they done? They got rid of this Recommended section and replaced it with all sorts of shit like:

• Top Tracks: I’m not on Youtube to watch music videos and I couldn’t care less about this.
• Top Stories: I’m not on Youtube for news so why force it on me.
• Latest Videos: I couldn’t care less what the most recent video’s posted are.
• Trailers: I don’t like to watch movie trailers. Stop trying to force them on me.
• Watch Later: Finally one of the old useful sections. I might want to watch something I marked to watch later.
• Music: More music? WTF is this?
• Trending: And again I couldn’t care less. I’m not into trending videos. I get enough of that shit posted on Facebook (ok, some are good but I’m not hear on Youtube for that).

Now, one time I did find the Recommended section buried way down here somewhere but today its completely gone.

Guess what else is gone? My viewing.

So if YouTube wants to keep viewership up the way to do it is go back to showing me stuff I might actually want to watch rather than shoving stuff in front of me that you think is going to keep my interest. Because guess what, its not going to.

• Delicious
• Delicious