14 DAY TRIAL // Google is continuing its, mostly half-hearted, quest to add some sort of social components to its products. While YouTube can be considered a social network of sorts, at least in some of its initial intents and features, it's unlikely many users consider it a replacement or even an alternative to Facebook. Still, Google is trying its hand again and is adding a new friends-recommendation feature with a 'you may know these people' list on the homepage, which should be coming in the next few weeks.
“YouTube has always been a place for you to share and enjoy videos with family and friends. Soon, we'll be making it even easier for you to find people you know on the site. We'll start by launching a 'You may know these people' suggestions box on the homepage over the next few weeks that shows you the YouTube channels of people who might be your acquaintances, and lets you easily connect and subscribe to them.” Elizabeth Windram, senior user experience designer, wrote.
From the looks of it, the feature sounds pretty much like Facebook's own 'people you may know' feature and it should work in the same way too, with YouTube 'magically' recommending people who may be your friends or relatives in real life. Not that magically, it turns out, as Google will just leverage its great arsenal of products to power this new feature.
If you've ever sent a friend a YouTube video via email while logged in, that person could be recommended to you as a potential friend to add to your list on YouTube. Also, if your Gmail account is linked to your YouTube one, Google will see if any of your friends has a YouTube channel set up and will notify you as well. For those concerned with privacy, Google lets them disable this upcoming feature by going to the Privacy section in their YouTube account settings and deselecting the “Let others find my channel on YouTube if they have my email address” option.