YouTube has revolutionized its look. This ‘new look’ is changing the focus of the video-clip site from individual videos to ‘channels’ similar to the ones on television.

The site’s transformation into a rival to TV services seems to be headstrong. The latest service from YouTube is the ‘YouTube Slam, ’it is a weekly talent show where users vote on their favorite comedy, music as well as viral clips (this will help YouTube understand its viewers and compete with other TV providers). It is YouTube’s ‘video discovery experiment’ and also has videogame-like elements in it, where users earn points for accurately predicting favorites.

“Have some free time this week? Think you can find the next singing sensation, viral video like Charlie bit my finger or Surprised Kitty?” – Official YouTube Blog.

“Each week a new crop of videos battles head-to-head in Comedy, Cute, Music, Bizarre and Dance Slams, where your votes determine who wins the Slam and gets featured on the leaderboard…Earn points for predicting the crowd favorites, and see how you stack up against other players at the end of each week.”

This obviously is a bold and unusual move for YouTube. YouTube maintained to remain the same for years, until Google started offering channels with professional looking content this year. Then it rolled this into the site’s ‘new look’ in early December.

This competition is a new and definitely an unfamiliar element. It is similar to Facebook apps and games. However, it might yield to high user interactivity and feedback.

“YouTube is in a process of reinvention at the moment - a rival site, Vevo, is basically taking all of the music videos away from them…YouTube desperately need to create a new relevancy for themselves and that's why with the recent site re-launch - making it look more like a rich interactive TV-like experience - and features like Slam are all about trying to give YouTube a unique place in the online video landscape.” – Mark Mulligan, a digital media analyst.