Google+ rolled out yet another new feature [1] yesterday: real-time hangouts with YouTube. After clicking the “share” button under any YouTube video, users will see a new link to “Watch with your friends: Start a Google+ Hangout.” They can then choose a few friends to invite to watch the video.
Although Google didn’t officially announce the new feature, company product manager Brian Glick wrote a short post [2] about it on his own Google+ page, writing, “You can now start a Google+ Hangout with a YouTube video, directly from YouTube. Watch with your friends. :)”
YouTube Live product manager Brandon Badger told GigaOm [3] a few weeks ago that the company was working on the feature. At the time, Google+ users were already able to start YouTube hangouts by manually going through several steps, but the new feature makes the process a lot easier.
Links:
[1] http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/watch-with-friends-youtube/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
[2] https://plus.google.com/103515259519634902605/posts/9itVSJy1ge3
[3] http://gigaom.com/video/youtube-hangouts-live-stream/