This week on UnBeige... a YouTube redesign?

So out of yesterday's UnBeige newsfeed came an interesting news blurb about the planned redesign of YouTube (which I didn't know about). This blurb was linked to an article from ClickZ titled, "YouTube Plans Redesign to Highlight Premium Content." 

The article explains that the first part of the new design will clearly separate the "premium and long-form programming" from the "user-posted videos" and "will offer four tabs: Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos." The first three tabs will feature the premium content, while the fourth tab will house the user-generated content. According to the executive interviewed in the ClickZ article, the move is generated to separate the content that YouTube's advertisers would rather not be associated with from the content they don't mind having placed next to their ads. 

The second part of the redesign will be a redesigned video player that closely resembles the one on Hulu that will allow users to "dim the lights," or reduce the brightness of the browser window outside the video. 

The scheduled launch of this redesign is April 16. 

I find this article particularly fascinating in that even with the rise of user-generated content on the Internet, YouTube in particular, that advertisers look like they are shying away from potentially questionable user-generated content in the hopes that their image will not be tarnished by the content on the screen. YouTube seems to be taking the first step and responding to that concern.