If you've always wanted to create a YouTube channel and you have a Google+ account, now you can use your profile to upload videos and share them with those in your Circles.
YouTube blogged about the change recently, which allows the use of a Google+ profile name and photo on a new YouTube channel, "giving you one consistent identity across platforms when uploading videos, sharing, commenting and other public activities."
Right now on Google+, YouTube has a presence as another tool friends can share videos in Hangout. You can also watch playlists of videos based on search terms using the YouTube slider that shows up on the right side of your G+ Stream page. G+ also shows up as a option under the "Share" button under videos.
Currently, if you had a YouTube account before you got on Google+ and you use the same Gmail account for both, it doesn't look like you can swap out your existing YouTube identity for the real one that's on Google+. But, if you want to change your new YouTube channel under a username different from your G+ identity, you can.
For some people, it may come as a relief that there's still a dividing line between who they are on YouTube publicly and what they choose to share on G+. For instance, I've turned off my viewing history, but if they look me up under my Feed tab, within my channel, do I really want people to know I get into stretches where I must re-live the musical scenes from "Grey's Anatomy"?
While in YouTube, you can share the video on your G+ page, and you can also start a hangout under the "Share" button if there's a particular video you can't wait to try to make viral amongst your Circles. (For those of us who don't want to work to look presentable for Hangouts, sharing videos with friends in that environment isn't appealing, nor the best way to make the most out of busy lives.)
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Check out Technolog on Facebook , and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai , who is also trying to keep her head above water in the Google+ stream.
