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Google brings YouTube and Google+ closer

The search giant adds some YouTube features to its social network. How close is too close, though?

 

Fruzsina Eördögh

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 4, 2011   Updated on Jun 3, 2021, 1:38 am CDT

Long before Google launched Google+, it already had a social network—one of the largest websites in the U.S. and the world, in fact.

That’s YouTube, of course.

Now Google is finally taking steps to bring YouTube, which hosts a thriving community, closer into Google+.

When a user signs into their Google+ page, they’ll see a YouTube button on the far right of their screen. Clicking on the button extends a search window that allows a user to find a YouTube video, instead of going directly to the YouTube site.

Until this change, it’s been easier to share YouTube videos on Facebook or Twitter than on Google+.

Already, the younger generation uses YouTube as a search engine instead of Google, as YouTube personality Philip DeFranco noted at VidCon, an online-video conference, earlier this year.

So for Google, which views Google+ as its best hope for countering the popularity of Facebook, it just makes sense to use YouTube.

Social Times writer Megan O’Neill wrote:

“I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to start seeing not only a whole lot more sharing of YouTube videos on Google Plus, but also people spending a lot more time on the site as they listen to playlists of music and more.”

But Google may have a fight on its hands if it changes too much about the YouTube experience. Right now, Google+ requires people to use real names, while YouTube allows pseudonyms—and raucous, often impolite, commentary that wouldn’t fly on the more sedate Google+.

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*First Published: Nov 4, 2011, 4:55 pm CDT