Similar to customization features long offered by MySpace, YouTubers can now tailor their personal profile pages with unique color schemes and content.

The video-sharing leader has also gone live with a new TestTube area where users can experiment with beta YouTube features focusing on live chat and audio. AudioSwap, for example, lets users more easily replace their videos' existing audio with musical tracks from artists with whom YouTube has content distribution deals.

To further engage users, YouTube has also added video channels dubbed Streams, which allow users to upload videos and then immediately live-chat as they watch them.

Countering YouTube's new investment in social networking and personalization features, News Corp.'s MySpace has long pursued its own video sharing strategy. And in the next few months, the social networking leader is expected to launch another video service unofficially named MySpace TV.

New features, however, only represent one side of the changes occurring within YouTube. Eileen Naughton, Google's New York regional sales director, was recently asked by Online Media Daily to grade the maturity of YouTube's present business model on a scale from one to ten.

In response, Naughton said: "It's not even at one yet. The ad effect has not even begun to be felt. There is no well-built-out model for YouTube right now." Google is expected to begin rolling out ad systems for YouTube this summer.

Meanwhile, Google is still embroiled in a billion-dollar lawsuit brought recently by Viacom over what the suit claims is "massive intentional copyright infringement" on the part of YouTube.

The turmoil, however, doesn't seem to be deterring users. YouTube's traffic actually grew from 17 million unique visitors for the week ending Jan. 28 to as high as 19 million weekly visitors in the weeks following the Viacom-ordered takedown.

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