YouTube Social lets you watch videos with friends online

[joelm3103]

YouTube Social lets you watch videos with friends online

t's a neat service for watching videos together with friends, synced in real-time, with chat thrown in for good measure.

What I like most about it is how easy it is to start with: you take the URL of a YouTube video (say, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5JaicYuVU), and just stick the word "social" after "youtube." So you get http://www.youtubesocial.com/watch?v=6G5JaicYuVU.

You then get a rich (almost cluttered) interface with your video taking center stage, and a TinyURL link that you can send to your friends. They just need to click the link to join you. Now, whenever you play the video, pause it, or even scrub to a different position, their videos follow suit. There's a chat pane where you can all talk about what you're watching, too. You can also give the "remote" to someone else so that they get to control the video.

The only downside is that the service is heavily Facebook-driven. I mean, the only way to get a proper nick ("username") in the chat is to be logged onto Facebook. That's pretty annoying; other than that, it's definitely a handy service!

 

[kmote]

What? Yet another thing I just don't understand.

 

[joelm3103]

What exactly you don't understand or am I missing something?

 

[kmote]

I just don't get the point.

 

[Yami]

Same, I don't see any appeal or use for it.

 

[Abstract Hero]

I do but don't. I can see where sometimes I love to share videos and so do my friends but not to this extent.

 

[Oreo]

I watch videos with my friends quite a lot and can see the appeal.

Bookmarked.

 

[joelm3103]

I don't really watch vids with friends...or never do actually, but I do have friends who love to watch vids with their mates and stuff, so I guess it appeals to a few people.