YouTube now lets users promote their Google+ accounts on the video broadcast network. YouTube is also now letting users alert others about new videos in their channel feeds.
Google's
(NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube team integrated a little more tightly with Google+ Feb.
16, allowing users to display their Google+ profile or Page alongside social
feeds from Facebook and Twitter on their YouTube channel.
YouTube
is also now letting users post
a "channel bulletin" in which they share video and playlists in their
channel feeds.
When YouTube
users are on their feed tab, they'll see a box called "Post to Feed"
that lets users enter a comment and add a link to share a video or a playlist.
When users
post the bulletin, it will appear in their channel feed, with the comment below
the video. Subscribers to the channel will be notified in their home page feed
when a user posts to their feed.
These new
features are designed to boost users' personal and professional brands on the
video-sharing site, which could also draw more people to watch users' videos.
YouTube wants
to increase the amount of time the average user spends on the Website from 15
minutes to five hours a day if it can, effectively displacing traditional TV
networks such as NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox.
To help boost
the amount of time users spend on its Website, YouTube has
launched dozens of professionally produced content channels
from the likes of Jay-Z, Madonna and other celebrities. The company has also
improved its YouTube application for Google TV, which Google views as the ideal
access point for YouTube content.
The video
network also overhauled its home page to provide consumers more comfortable
channel-surfing, part of the video Website's ongoing effort to be a key
broadcasting platform.
There are
other ways to boost user engagement besides creating new channels and a Web TV
platform, which is why YouTube is adding sharing features that allow users to
promote their video content via Google+ and other social networks that have
large audiences.
The Google+
profile-sharing option isn't YouTube's first integration with the social
network.
Since its June
launch, Google+ users have been able to watch YouTube videos with their
friends, family or colleagues via the Hangouts group video chat application,
which enables up to 10 users to watch YouTube clips, music videos or even
movies and discuss them in real time.
Google in
August added the ability for YouTube users with Google+ accounts to start
Hangouts right from YouTube with the click of a button.
Google+ and YouTube got even cozier in November,
as the company added a YouTube "slider" feature in Google+ that
lets users watch videos right from the social network.
Email
Print
