YouTube RealTime: Online video gets more social?
Updated 7:02 p.m. PDT: all my invitations are accounted for.
Google plans to begin testing on Wednesday night a new feature called YouTube RealTime that lets you and your friends share in the moment what you're doing with the site.
"This is building on the success of the YouTube friend activity feed, letting people see what their friends are watching, rating, commenting on, etc.," Google said about the feature, which the company plans to start offering to invitees tonight.
I have 25 invitations I'll be handing out had 25 invitations for when the service goes live later tonight--first come, first served. And just as with the Gmail launch five years ago, those folks will get 25 invitations of their own, so Google evidently is hoping for some viral marketing action.
Watching YouTube video, unlike regular TV, often is a solitary experience with one person and one computer. However, finding out about videos such as Japanese beatbox phenom Daichi's performance is very much a social phenomenon as URLs spread over e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging.
With RealTime, though, YouTube is essentially trying to combine those two aspects of the YouTube experience into one, creating more of a virtual equivalent of the couch in front of the TV. I haven't yet tried it out, but conceptually it reminds me of how Photophlow enlivens Flickr.
It's an opt-in service, so people can invite others to be their friends, and friends can accept or deny the request as they see fit.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
http://christopherdessi.wordpress.com
please invite me. my username - tem19
Google Friend Connect is what is running the social features on YouTube, the friends list, sharing, the log in, the whole works, YouTube running full blown Google Friend Connect and has been for weeks now.
Maybe now you behind the times Cnet guys will finally begin to get what GFC is about and realize why Facebook Connect can never compete.
Chris Lang
http://googlingsocial.com
- by fishface2775 April 23, 2009 4:32 PM PDT
- can someone invite me please
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(5 Comments)username: burstball2776