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Click-to-buy links for songs, games added to YouTube

YouTube is adding links to Amazon.com and the iTunes Store from the pages of thousands of its videos, making it easier for people to buy an MP3 they hear or a video game that looks good.

Jennifer Guevin Former Managing Editor / Reviews
Jennifer Guevin was a managing editor at CNET, overseeing the ever-helpful How To section, special packages and front-page programming. As a writer, she gravitated toward science, quirky geek culture stories, robots and food. In real life, she mostly just gravitates toward food.
Jennifer Guevin
YouTube's click-to-buy links
A link to Amazon.com's MP3 store appears for the song used as the soundtrack for the latest "Where the hell is Matt?" video. Click image for a larger version. YouTube; Jennifer Guevin/CNET News

Love that song in the latest "Where the hell is Matt?" video but have no idea what the hell it is? Wonder no more. Now YouTube will make it easier to identify songs and buy them instantly.

Google, which owns the video-sharing site, is adding "click to buy" links to thousands of video pages of YouTube partners, the company announced on its corporate blog Tuesday afternoon.

The idea is to make it easy for people to buy an MP3 or video game with the click of a mouse. The links appear just below the toolbox underneath a video, and link directly to the Amazon MP3 page or iTunes Store where people can buy the song. For video game trailers, YouTube will add links to buy the game from Amazon.

For those not interested in buying, the links will at least allow people to find out the name of an artist and title of a song playing as the soundtrack of a video they're watching.

For now, the service is only available to people in the U.S. And the only music company specifically mentioned in the announcement was EMI. But Google said this is just the beginning of a much larger project that will likely expand to include many more content partners and serve an international audience.