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YouTube shows what friends share on Facebook

YouTube just rolled out a feature that keeps you up to date on the videos that your friends are sharing on Facebook.

Harrison Hoffman
Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. The Web services report covers news, opinions, and analysis on Web-based software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and countless other companies in this rapidly expanding space. Hoffman currently attends the University of Miami, where he studies business and computer science. Disclosure.
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Harrison Hoffman

YouTube is pushing its Facebook Connect integration further by allowing its users to see the videos that their friends share on Facebook. YouTube users had previously been able to find their Facebook friends on YouTube as well as update their Facebook profile with their various actions from the site.

While it's nice to see YouTube embracing Facebook more and more, it stops a bit short of being an impressive Connect implementation. YouTube is getting there, but seems to be lagging behind a little in this department. An implementation that shares, on Facebook, what you are watching, on YouTube, would certainly make sense, although it might clutter up users' Facebook profiles if they are a prolific YouTube watcher. For now, the addition of this new feature is a welcome inclusion and serves as a great way of getting trusted recommendations for videos to watch on YouTube.

YouTube's new Facebook Connect feature. Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET

YouTube said this feature is in "test mode" for the time being. In my testing, I was not able to get this feature to actually work. This can be sometimes be expected while YouTube irons out the kinks with new features that aren't quite ready for prime time. If anyone has better luck, let us know in the comments.