YouTube Gets Google+ Hangouts (PICTURES)

Google now lets YouTube users invite their friends to join group video chats and watch videos together via YouTube.com.

Since Google publicly launch its Google+ social network in late June, the Hangouts feature (enabling group video chats that host up to 10 people) has let users simultaneously stream Youtube videos as they video chat with their friends.

But now, Google has begun to promote Google Hangouts within Youtube, which receives 710 million visitors from across the world, according to an estimate from Google’s Doubleclick Ad Planner.

Google places a link to Google Hangouts below every video. In the screenshots (below), you can see the Hangouts link within the video's sharing section, to the right of to the social media sharing buttons.

After starting a hangout, you can invite your friends on Google+ to watch the video with you and chat about it face-to-face.

According to Mashable, YouTube Product Manager Brian Glick first announced this feature in a post on his Google+ account.

The mother of all social networks, Facebook, recently partnered with VoIP service Skype to introduce a free video calling service for the Facebook platform. In contrast with Google's Hangout feature, Facebook's video chat feature doesn't allow group calls and doesn't let users stream YouTube videos.

Outside of Facebook, Skype offers group video chat for up to 5 people, but it requires a paid membership to access the feature.

Several other competing services--such as Tinychat, AOL's AV and Apple's iChat--allow for group video calls but don't offer a feature that lets groups watch streaming video together.

Google is slowly integrating its new social network into some of its other services. For example, Google recently announced that public posts on Google+ will now appear below relevant links in Google Search results.

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Comments

[Knowledgeseeker]

05:43 PM on 08/21/2011

great idea, this tool will be very useful for students and professors.

[US News Reader]

05:25 PM on 08/21/2011

Using Google Plus. Chee Chew just tested out 18 people in one Hangout. Getting impressive. Celebrities are also coming on board to test out google plus, found a list of the so fars at http://topgplus.com.

[Wide Stance]

05:17 PM on 08/21/2011

Google+ is human trafficking.

Have you noticed how many times Google urges you to "add a recovery email address" to your Google account? Now they are asking for a "recovery phone number." You might ask: "Why?"

Google wants your real identity. The future of advertising is selling verified identities. Demographics aren't enough anymore. They want to track *you*, to market *you*. Not someone "like" you. (You give them your phone number and they have you. Your identity is money to them. Collectively, billions.)

[JohnyTL]

02:44 PM on 08/21/2011

I still refuse to use it.

The people I know that do use google+ don't check it as much as facebook and are the kind of people that still have a myspace and a yearbook in case anyone at all wants to talk to them.

It's already a dying site.

[FabulousTahoe]

02:43 PM on 08/21/2011

This is a cool feature... I always wished I could show YouTube videos in a hangout rather than just my own webcam.

[Badbowler]

09:56 AM on 08/21/2011

All my friends over 50. Not going to happen. I don't like to listen to people talk in the theater so I would not like them to talk on my videos. I can't read a scroll and listen and watch the news at the same time either. Also fix the copywrite laws. I have some music that I bought as 45, 8track, LP,Cassette, CD, and audio file. I what point do I own it. The business model is broken. Do it live. That's how you will make your money. Any airing of your music on radio or internet videos is just advertising.

[LiberalGod]

07:09 PM on 08/20/2011

Mistake- a consumer inconvinience to put + in google plus.....i see failure all over it.

[LiberalBuzz]

06:25 PM on 08/20/2011

Dumb

[Chockolate]

05:53 PM on 08/20/2011

Google+ has all the markings of an expensive failure... already.

[blueknight41]

05:08 PM on 08/20/2011

well if i havent been invited too google plus so i dont care