[screenshots of old and new version of Youtube website]

The YouTube Videos website sports a new look today that looks cleaner and more usable with the re-arranged modules. The site has moved from a 3-column layout to a 2-column with the embed section now placed just below the actual video clip.

They have added two new features and also removed few things:

What's in ?

Other than the cosmetic changes, the very interesting news is that YouTube is now giving users an option to embed video clips on their sites with or without the related video thumbnails. This option is available near the Embed box.

For existing videos in your blog, you can insert the parameter "&rel0" to the Youtube URL to include related video clips or "&rel1" to hide the related videos - the default setting is that related videos will be shown in the video clip.

Another enhancement is that use can now share YouTube videos on Digg, Delicious, Furl, Reddit and StumbleUpon directly from the YouTube interface.

What's out  in the new YouTube ?

YouTube has removed the favorites link that suggested how many YouTube members have marked some video as their favorites. The star ratings stay.

Also missing are the links which showed the top five websites who have embedded that video clip.