If you wish to watch some videos with some friends on YouTube, here’s a way.
The most-obvious way is to call or message them and give them the link to the YouTube video and somehow get them to hit the play button at the very same time and hope it works just fine.
However, there is a process to watch YouTube videos with friends in a streamlined way. One is through ShareTube. It is free and easy to use and doesn’t require signing up for anything, you can also create a queue that your friends can add to, as well as search for videos fight from the ShareTube interface.
To begin:
- Go to ShareTube’s homepage, type a name for your “room,” and click the “Make a Room” buttom.
- On the next screen, type a username and hit Enter on your keyboard.
Next, you’ll want to invite your friends to join. There’s a small invite section in the top-right corner where you can Tweet or post to Facebook. If you just want the URL to the room, click the Twitter icon and copy the link in the tweet. It’s a bit annoying, but nothing too cumbersome.
- Next, you’ll invite your friends to join. There’s a small invite section in the top-right corner where you can Tweet or post to Facebook. If all you want is the URL to the room, click the Twitter icon and copy the link in the tweet.
When your friends get the link and join the room, the action can begin. You can search for YouTube videos or paste in the YouTube video’s link. The first video automatically begins playing. You can continue to search and add YouTube videos to the queue even while the current video is playing.
There’s also a chat function on the right side where you can add in your reactions and chat with your friends as the YouTube video is playing.
If you’d rather have video chat capabilities, there’s a service named Gaze that is similar to ShareTube, it allows you video chat with your friends while you watch a YouTube video. However, Gaze doesn’t let you search for videos within the interface and it doesn’t let you create a queue.
