YouTube’s New “Shared Tab” Now Available to the Rest of the World – Ya!

If you haven’t updated your YouTube application yet, you might want to get on top of that. YouTube has finally added a nifty mobile-only feature giving you the option to share a video with friends and then chat about it privately in your very own thread. No more haters telling you to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine just for the sake of trolling.

Much like the Android default Messages application, once you share a video with one of your contacts (or within a group), instead of being forced to start a new text message thread or email, you can simply do this without leaving the application. If your friends want to respond with their own video, there is a reel icon that allows them (or you) to search for a good video come back.

First limited to Canada and North America, YouTube’s private sharing function “Shared Tab” is now available to the rest of the lonesome world to enjoy on all iOS and Android devices. You can find the “Shared Tab” at the bottom bar of the YouTube application.

YouTube wrote in their blog:

Starting today, you can share videos with your friends and family directly on YouTube. Not only can you share and receive videos in the app, you can also chat about them right on YouTube, reply with another video, invite others to the conversation, and more. We think it’ll make sharing easier, faster and more fun on your phone. And if you want to continue sharing videos through other apps, you can still do that too.

Once you hit the send button, you’ll see a new tab pop up showing all the contacts are selected automatically. This way, all members of your group have the chance to share what they thought of the video, while also having the ability to share it as well. If members like the video, they can tap the heart icon sitting next to the video you shared. It’s nice to finally be able to share my videos all in one place instead of switching between multiple apps. That was annoying, to say the least.

For now, there is no desktop version of this feature, which is a bummer, but I guess you can’t ask for everything. YouTube mentioned on their blog that they’re making improvements based on user feedback on the iOS and Android versions. I’m pretty sure that as the function gets better, YouTube will be adding it to desktops soon – at least I hope so.