YouTube Gets a Facelift. Here’s the Memo.

YouTube is trying out a new look today. You can’t see it yet, but it should be up later this afternoon. In the meantime, you can get a sense of it via an email YouTube sent out to its partners this morning, posted in full below. Or you can check out these blog posts from earlier in the year, when the company previewed the changes for people who read YouTube blog posts.

Google’s (GOOG) video site says this is one of the “biggest redesigns in YouTube history,” but my hunch is that most YouTube users won’t notice any difference at all since they’re paying attention to the video clips and not the window dressing around it.

YouTube is briefing the press a little later today, and a PR rep promises that the email is merely a “condensed sliver” of what the company will be talking about. If true, I’ll update with anything relevant.