A Little more poking around (on YouTube's blog on this topic) leads me to believe that the linking thing is currently a bug they are working on making work again. So this and a few other bugs still are part of the current release. Seems odd to me that new users/accounts are currently required to use something that is this buggy, but I'm not privy to their entire development process.

As a person that would like to have a clickable link out to my own website from within my YouTube Channel, I am looking forward to this working in ver 2 of channels on YouTube.

The official line is they cannot support both the new and old channel design, so based on that, I think they will really turn off the old design once they make the decision that the new design is "ready". BTW, I'm not sure what percentage of folks actually use their channels anyway. I think it is mainly the medium & hardcore YouTubers that do... others may not even really know they can change it or that it exists outside of being a "weird name" (YouTube's name) for their "account".

VideoLeads here... I also think "Related Videos" are cool, but I know for many they can become a distraction (maybe even me at times!).

My point was as a Marketer using YouTube it is useful to be able to control the environment in which my customers view my stuff. I've found other issues I don't like in the new vs. old design, but I was pointing out one useful component for those of us that use YouTube as a form of (free) marketing.

If you want something else to groan about, how about the fact that it seems like we can no longer add a "live link" (URL) to the descriptive text in the channels. We used to be able to add http://www.... links in the description/about us area but now they don't work anymore...could be a bug they will work on or it could be on purpose!

I've poked around the new channel design and I see one very positive trait: You can pass on a URL to have people watch your video within your own "Private Theater". What I mean here is prior to this release (pre-release) if you sent out a URL to watch a video the viewer could only watch it inside the normal "shared" area of YouTube. The "Related Videos" section (aka your competition) were always just a click away.

Now you can have a captive audience... if they are watching within your new channel, they are more likely to stay around and watch more of your stuff rather than your competition's stuff.