YouTube Player Slides into Google+

This week Google+ launched a YouTube slider into its stream for watching and sharing videos while connecting with friends. Once activated, a YouTube popup window begins with your selection and keeps playing related videos from a playlist.

 

Here’s how it works:

 

Mouse over the new YouTube icon at the top right of Google+. It slides out and asks, "What would you like to play"? Enter a topic or an artist and a pop-up window with a list of 20 items will be displayed and the player will automatically start with the first item. It runs through all 20 and stops.

 

You can share your playlist with circles . The people you share with can open a related playlist directly from your post. Your YouTube playlists will now show up in Google+ search results as well.

 

The obvious use is as a music video player, a video equivalent to Spotif  . Users who are familiar with YouTube playlists will know that the related videos may be “too related”--and would not display similar music from other artists. However, the YouTube player allows users to skip to the track they want to hear. The YouTube player can also serve as a news source. For instance, selecting “Kenya” in the search box resulted in a playlist of news clips on current military activity . It can also provide straight entertainment, say a running playlist of South Park clips. Google’s advantage is the wide range of content within YouTube. Ads are included as with most free music services, but play is unlimited.

 

The popup player will be hidden once you start it and move to another page. Look for a YouTube button at the bottom of your computer screen where  running programs are displayed. Click to bring it back to the forefront. Alternately, you can stop pause a track or replay the previous track from the YouTube slider.