In case you haven’t checked out youtube recently to get your daily fill of lunacy, you may notice that it’s gotten a MAJOR facelift next time you visit.

YouTube on Thursday launched the most extensive changes to its appearance, organization and function in its six-year history as the Internet’s top video site prepares for the fast-approaching time when people will expect to be able to watch the same video content on their living room TV, gaming console or smartphone that they once saw only on their laptop.

The changes, which were expected to be visible to all of YouTube’s more than 800 million monthly users around the world by midafternoon Thursday, are prompted by the San Bruno-based YouTube’s new emphasis on a more television-like experience oriented around “channels,” instead of individual videos.

“We’re trying to take what we see as the best of TV and the best of online and bring it together,” said Shishir Mehrotra, vice president of product development for YouTube. He acknowledged some risk to the strategy as YouTube tries to balance the traditional way people used the site as well as introduce viewers to the channel-oriented concept. – MercuryNews.com

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The first thing you’ll notice is that the homepage has been remodeled with a snazzy menu bar on the left with categories, subscriptions, social media connections, and other useful stuff.

It’s definitely an improvement in my mind, as I always thought youtube looked a bit bush-league, and a bit stuck in the 20th century.

It’s got a fresh set of icons, a new feed section in the subscriptions area (resembling somewhat of a social media type news-feed), and it makes sharing with Facebook and Google + much easier (and it even has a new favicon if you look carefully).

Lately there’s been a trend in the tech industry to try to make everything more unified through different devices. Nowadays, people aren’t just browsing on their computers, they’re browsing with phones, tablets, ebook readers, gaming systems, and even TVs are now coming out with web browsing capabilities.

In this regard, an efficient navigation system is a must, and I believe Youtube has taken a step in the right direction to making things more user friendly for devices with less navigational capabilities.

Go check it out for yourself. It’s not exactly a life changing announcement, but it will make your web-life a little easier if you happen to hang around youtube a lot.