Since taking over YouTube, Google has introduced some interesting tweaks to the video-sharing network. Every once in a while these tweaks seem pretty random, but they generally improve the search and organization of YouTube videos. Today's update does this to a certain extent, and flexes a couple muscles on the design end, for usability and aesthetics (just a couple muscles, though).
There's a new browsing option for viewing related videos pertaining to the current video you're watching. This is only accessed when you've got a video playing in full screen, and it looks very much like the Your Truman Show VideoMap. You'll see a little icon in the bottom left corner that looks a little bit like the "TOXIC" danger warning symbol, but trust me, it's not dangerous at all.
Click that icon and little bubbles will appear, representing your related videos. Hover over one bubble, and you'll get the title, username and rating, as well as related videos for that clip as well. Navigation arrows let you swim through your growing collection of bubbles, up, down, left or right. If you feel you've veered too far in one direction, then there's a little green dot in the upper left corner that will take you right back to your original set of related videos.
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I find the new feature visually appealing, and it gives you a pretty fun way of watching more clips without having to minimize your full-screen window. But there's no way to further your related searches based on username. And what would be cooler than being able to browse the related video bubbles while your original clip is still playing? The saddest part of it all is that this option hasn't been added to the embeddable YouTube players.
I was also surprised to learn, according to Download Squad, that this new browsing feature isn't available for promoted videos. Even if YouTube is getting some sort of compensation for promoted videos, I'd imagine that those would benefit from the new related videos browsing option. Perhaps it's just a matter of a week or so before this new feature is more universally applied to YouTube.