YouTube has been the old standby for video sharing and hosting since it’s inception. Similar companies, specifically Vimeo, have made a small dent, but YouTube reigns supreme. They are the video platform for everyone, Vimeo is really tailored towards filmmakers and other professional creatives.

Some of the major problems YouTube has for distribution is that it’s cluttered and not really mobile friendly. It looks like Google has heard these complaints and a new YouTube experience is coming.

Our recent post discussed vertical/square video vs horizontal and that in the end, it depended on where the video will be displayed. Looks like YouTube has entered the mobile era and will now adjust it’s player so that vertical and square videos can be played back and displayed as they were shot.

It looks like they’ve also decided to clean the desktop space. The new layout is less ‘boxy’ and flows easier. They’ve made the account drop-down actually useful and even offer a dark theme option for viewing (which, personally, looks much better). 

Other updates from yesterday’s conference include new ways to share within the YouTube App, and a new VR experience dubbed ‘VR180’. VR180 will be an interesting development. The idea is human vision is 180°, we can see what’s in front of us, so let’s create and be able to view video in the same manner. Some 360°/VR cameras already have the option of shooting with one or two of their lenses. Being able to only view the 180° that are naturally in front of us may make the VR experience and storytelling a little easier. They’re working in some specific VR180 cameras, which seems odd, but maybe the player and headsets can’t recognize the metadata from a 360° shooting in only 180°? Either way, it’ll be an intriguing development for the VR space.

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