YouTube underwent a massive overhaul last week, focusing on bringing social sharing to the online video giant.  But as CIO.com points out, they seemed to have missed their mark.

The YouTube redesign is somewhat reminiscent of the new Facebook layout, with 3 sections dividing content on the main page.  The left section includes mostly navigation, with designated sections for your subscriptions, suggested channels for viewing, and connecting your own social media accounts to your YouTube channel.

With social media accounts like Google+ or Facebook linked up to YouTube, the middle section provides content that your friends have posted.  It also displays any videos that you’ve chosen from the left section.

The right column is all about Recommended content (i.e. content based upon your personal Google web history).  This works reasonably well, bringing relevant content directly to you based on your interests.

The new overhaul gives YouTube a totally different feel and look.  It seems the video-sharing website is placing a central focus of personalizing YouTube to fit your needs, with the new features to feed content from your friends and from your web browsing history.  The new design may be helpful for users who want to peruse the site, casually looking for videos and content to view.  However, given the fact that most users are simply directed to YouTube when friends send links through Facebook and Google+, the site’s redesign is a bit redundant.

YouTube took a big risk in revamping their website, in an attempt to add more social features.  While the overhaul will likely make finding videos easier for casual viewers of the site, it simply falls short in connecting the social media world with online video viewing.