YouTube has a new real-time product that adds an extra social layer to YouTube, allowing friends to share the videos they’re watching with each other in real time, without having to turn to outside chat programs or Twitter.

Before now, there was no particularly good reason to create friends on YouTube apart from subscribing to new uploads from a user whose videos you liked. The viral marketing of YouTube videos generally took place off-site through instant messaging, Twitter and social bookmarking websites. All that has now changed.

RealTime appears as a toolbar at the bottom of every YouTube page. The Online Friends tab shows which videos your friends are currently watching. It also allows you to send an invitation to come and watch the video you are currently watching. This invitation will pop up on their screen - and this feature can be turned off if annoying - thereby allowing instant sharing of videos.

RealTime is still in public beta and YouTube are using an invitation system, similar to the early days of Gmail, to spread the word. Every user to get invited gets 25 invites of their own. This means that as of now you'll need to beg for an invitation! This seems a strange marketing method but, on second thoughts, I wonder if this is also a way to test the system as it grows exponentially.

So... if you have a spare invite please post it below or, perhaps easier, if you want an invite just post your YouTube username and beg! :-)

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