We spent the last few hours messing with the new layout, so you should be able to see it now.
Here's some things I've noticed so far that I don't like:
The biggest issue is not being able to choose the featured video for subscribers. You can designate a video for non-subscribers (or a trailer), but you have no control over what gets featured for subscriber. Youtube chooses that for you.
You also cannot have the video automatically play for subscribers. It will play automatically for non-subs.
On the banner (the one we have is not our finalized design-still refining it), I found out that while you can have up to 10 links, only one can be unverified, so we had to choose between our website and our shirt store.
The recent activity area to the right of the featured (what to watch next) video is pointless.
Organizing the shelves is one of the most frustrating things you will ever have to do (hopefully it will get fixed by the time you guys design your pages). I would highly recommend not having any living creatures (family, friends, pets) nearby when you start adding shelves. The biggest problem is the inability to use a playlist as a shelf. You can create a custom shelf, but they are set by tags and the order the videos appear in on the shelf is determined by the order in which a video was tagged with whatever tag you chose to create the shelf from. So it's sort of custom, but not to the level where you can change the order of the videos. If you choose playlists as a shelf, it will show your playlists-but if you have a playlist with only locked videos in it (that are scheduled for release later), it still shows up on your shelf, even though no one can watch anything in it. There are very limited options for shelves right now. There are only 6 options and then the custom option which can only be done by tags. There is a choice of vertical/horizontal, but no control over how many videos show.
The banner does not display on my ipad under the newest ipad app or on the mobile webpage. Ditto for my phone. I assume the new layout is not ready to go live on those platforms yet. I did not test out the TV yet to see if the background/skin is there, but I'll let you guys know how that works out.
The channel search box should always be in the open/expanded position. Having to click the icon to get it open is an extra step that people won't bother to take.
I sent a huge list of concerns to the developers. The ones I sent them yesterday were all addressed today, so someone is listening. I'm hoping they take care of these issues quickly.
