Thanks to some of the people in my Google+ feed, I came across a little hidden innovation that YouTube and Google+ have brought to the social media party – social video watching.
In real life, when people want to watch a show together they either invite them over for a TV night or maybe they hang on the line on their telephone through the whole show chattering away about it.
But now Google+ and YouTube have teamed up to try and recreate the value of watching television, movies, or other video with friends and family.
They’ve made it so that friends can hangout and watch the same YouTube videos at the same time while connected to each other by Google+, and at the same time have created a potential killer app that will drive adoption of Google+ that builds upon the size and strength of the YouTube fan base.
If you don’t know how to do social video watching with YouTube and Google+, it is pretty easy. You go to YouTube find a video you like, then click the share button to expose all of the sharing options. There you will see a new option that says:
“Watch with your friends. Start a Google+ Hangout”
Where will things go from here? Hard to say, but I do know that this feature will raise the bar for Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live, Twitter, and the other social networks out there. And, this feature should start a lot of chatter on the web, and eventually probably also make it onto the mass media as well, but only time will tell what kind of takeup this gets. It should be a fun, and social ride. Buckle up! Google+ is about to take off.
Bonus Insight
Mark Ritson, one of my Marketing professors during my MBA course at London Business School, did a study that showed that people tend to leave the room during the commercial breaks when watching television alone, but were more likely stay in the room and watch and discuss the advertisements when watching television with other people. Will this behavior carry over to social online video watching? Does this insight from the off-line world present opportunities for advertisers in the on-line world? What do you think?
Special Bonus
If you’ve read all the way to the bottom, then you deserve a free sample chapter from my new book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire. I hope you enjoy the sample chapter and consider purchasing the book as a way of supporting the future growth of this community.
Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.