How are you sharing YouTube videos you watch at the moment? Myself, I share via email, instant chat with whoever is online, or if its something my Twitter network would be interested in, I shorten the URL and away I go. TechCrunch reports that they have tried out a new feature being rolled out, that being to share videos in real time with other friends that are using YouTube. So no need to use external services, share YouTube within itself.
So the million dollar question is, will people use it? It often amazes me how active some comment on YouTube videos. There must be a specific niche or demographic of people that use it purely to interact with people. In my real life social circle, the sole reason it is used is to watch a specific video and resume whatever it was we were doing previously, or moving to a related video.
However, I cannot argue with the facts and the stats - people love interacting on Youtube. So for those that already power users, this could possibly be their dream come true. But as for the users such as myself, it probably won’t convert me, no matter how good the UI or experience would be.
One nice feature is the clear attempt at both replicating and tweaking Facebook’s chat and real time features to hopefully encourage people to share within YouTube itself rather than another service/network.
The final question remains however is what new data can YouTube mine from this feature? Can it draw a co-relation between teenager males and how much they share videos relating to cars, as opposed to teenage girls dancing in front of their webcam? Do people start to share a video halfway through because they enjoy it that much, or wait until the end before they share? How often does a shared video get viewed by the sharee? Or is it ignored and viewed at a later date?
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