New Google+ Updates: YouTube Playlists and Chrome Extensions

Kira M. Newman November 7, 2011 Tweet

Google is building an empire, and it took a few strides outward last week by rolling out updates to Google Plus.

The first is a YouTube “slider.”  You click the YouTube icon at the top right in Google Plus (mine hasn’t appeared yet), type in a search term, and see a playlist of related videos appear in a popup window. You can navigate that playlist from Google Plus. When you share videos from it, your friends can browse the whole playlist as well.

Google is also offering new Chrome extensions that let you +1 and share any website and check Google Plus notifications while browsing anywhere on the web, not just on Google pages.

This is a pointed example of synergy: part of Google’s power comes from the fact that it does so much, and it can use one product to promote other products. In Gmail alone, we’ve seen Google search available straight from the inbox, linked YouTube videos appearing at the bottom of emails, and the ability to open attachments as Google docs. As Google’s SVP of engineering, Vic Gundotra, says, albeit vaguely:

“We’ve got lots more planned for Google+, YouTube and Chrome (and all the other Google products you already use).”

I personally look forward to these updates – though not a heavy Google Plus user, I still love having my email, calendar, and documents all in one place. Are you a fan of the Google empire, or is all this integration ensnaring us in a giant web of red, blue, green, and yellow?