Google Plus Hangouts Arrive in YouTube, Cat Video Sharing Even Easier

Google has just solved one of the more formidable problems plaguing today's Web surfers: Sharing funny YouTube videos with one's friends. Provided, of course, that you and your friends all have Google Plus accounts at the ready.

A new feature that Google's recently built into YouTube now allows you to instantly fire up an online viewing party between you and your nine closest friends. That's all thanks to Google's integration of Google Plus Hangouts directly into YouTube's video sharing functionality. For the uninitiated (or Google Plus uninivited), Hangouts are one of the new communication tools on Google's social network that let up to ten users at a time join a simultaneous real-time video chat at the push of a button.

Here's how it works on YouTube. First, find a funny video on YouTube that you think your friends need to be made aware of. Go about your normal process of sharing the video's URL by clicking on the big "Share" button below the player window. But before you start copying, pasting, and emailing that URL to your buddies, check out the new link above the likes/dislikes bar that asks you to "Start a Google+ Hangout."

Click the link and a window will pop up to first verify that you have an active Google Plus account tied to your Google account for YouTube. If that's the case, you'll then be given the option to pick your friends and initiate the hangout. Once in, you'll be able to start, stop, mute, and unmute the video itself, and you actions will be mirrored on the screens of all of the people who have tuned in to your Hangout. You can all offer vocal commentary on how awesome the video is or chat about its contents via Hangout's built-in chat window. But be warned: Anyone in the hangout can change the playing video at any time, should your attempt at humor turn out to be lamer than you expected.

It remains to be seen what services are next on Google's radar for Hangout integration. But given that the feature does give Google a leg up on Facebook (and the social network's comparably paltry text chats), Google could tap into a great deal of success by letting users hang out all over its various online services.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391471,00.asp