Here's some data:
Mobile is the seventh of mass media and the internet adoption (feature and smartphone) is 12%.
32% of mobile subscribers used browser in May 2010 (Comscore).
In 2011 smartphones will lead US mobile phone market (Nielsen).

So that's why it's so important for a web oriented Corporation to design for mobile.
Now let's take a look on what Google calls a "new experience" !?

First of all, in a Google video, we see an iPhone as the main character. Weird
As we know, the iphone aspect ratio is 3:2 (480×320 for 3G/3GS and 960×640 for 4G). So the design has essentially two sections: the player (horizontal orientation) and the website (vertical orientation).
The youtube experience is obviously reduced in main actions. For example in the detail bar you've 5 calls to action: iLike, iDontLike, Save, Share, HQ. There's a Hub&spoke button on the top bar that takes the user to the main menu: Home, Browse, Favourites, Playlist, Subscriptions, Uploads, Sign out, Settings (very heterogeneous and one item less than nine .
The comment and social section are below the player. It means that the design is based on "watch content" scenarios.
I like it, but I don't think it is a new experience at all
 

More findings in The Mobile Question: Lessons in Design and Strategy for Your Mobile Experience by Jeremy Johnson (you can listen the speech @IA Summit 2010 reported by BoxesAndArrows)

The concept is not so new: the stream. Personal, social, favourite, referred, everything is an ingredient of this video salad ball.
Hulu, Netflix, Spotify and IPTV prepared the market: about 10 million people watch web content on the TV right now!

A UX great feature: Leanback works only with arrow keys, because it's designed to be used from your remote tv controller.
Great crossweb design!

Divertire: ecco cosa è riuscita a fare Google con la produzione di Google Chrome Speed Tests.
Il contenuto virale fa parte del crossmedia mix della campagna promozionale del browser di big G.
La scelta sembra ovvia: dovendo promuovere un browser, cosa c'è di meglio che farlo on line, sfruttando i dati di gradimento degli utenti per i video del genere "domino" pubblicati su una piattaforma di proprietà? Anche gli Ok Go, band di uno dei video + visti del biennio 2008/2009 su youtube, quest'anno ha prodotto un video di genere domino.

E così mentre in Europa il nuovo sistema operativo di zio Bill sarà browserless (Windows 7e Net Applications ci informa che Internet Explorer ad aprile 2010 è sceso per la prima volta sotto il 60%, Microsoft corre ai ripari con una campagna tradizionale a base di affissioni (il cui claim, "the safest browser of all", è stucchevole), invece il viral di google si replica e colpisce il target giusto: nella scorsa settimana la segnalazione di questo video m'è arrivata da 7 persone diverse che si occupano di amministrazione sistemi IT. Ovviamente tutti e sette sono moooolto nerd

Ovvio che per essere ULTRANERD bisogna anche guardare il making of.

P.S. Sul Web Microsoft ha fatto un product minisite per Explorer 8 con dei video che "scimmiottano" il mockumentary più una serie di tv ads. Giudicate voi.

As they say, a product, a platform, a protocol (three P).

It’s really impressive. It seems that the GooGuys have combined the intuition of wiki (collaboration), messaging (instant and delayed), social networking, tagging into an open source project (the 4th P).
The first sensation is: WOW. Is that possible?
The second one is: what about the experience of being overwhelmed by too much information?

After "the cloud", a new metaphor is served! The wave is an engaging concept: let’s surf it!
But old sailors know that waves are dangerous. In fact it’s really hard to imagine the interaction with a web application that is spread everywhere (API & Extensions).

Will Google give consistency and paths to waves? Will Google allow us to pass over and surf them?
As WebSailors, we’ll see. By the way, I’ve a lot of thoughts to share after this viewing:

• Connectivity is the power and the browser is the new operating system.
• There isn’t any message, just conversations (so cluterian!).
• Blogspace is affected by broadcast paradigma: post and comments.
• There isn’t any difference between message and feedback. Both are old words.
• Playback culture will defeat log culture.

P.S.

Come on folks, stop clapping at every feature… It’s sit-com style! Evertything seems unreal.