YouTube Comments Powered by Google+

Just like Blogger, YouTube will switch to Google+ comments, but it won't be optional. YouTube already asks users to connect their channels with Google+.

"When it comes to the conversations happening on YouTube, recent does not necessarily mean relevant. So, comments will soon become conversations that matter to you. In the coming months, comments from people you care about will rise up where you can see them, while new tools will help video creators moderate conversations for welcome and unwelcome voices. Starting this week, you'll see the new YouTube comments powered by Google+ on your channel discussion tab. This update will come to comments on all videos later this year, as we bring you more ways to connect with familiar faces on YouTube," informs the YouTube blog.

Here's a screenshot that shows the new commenting interface:


YouTube's comments are rarely insightful or useful. There's a lot of spam, trolling and hate speech. Switching from anonymous aliases to Google+ profiles might improve the quality of comments.

"You'll see posts at the top of the list from the video's creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles. You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone on YouTube and Google+, only people in your Circles or just your bestie. Like Gmail, replies are threaded so you can easily follow conversations. You have new tools to review comments before they're posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans. These can help you spend less time moderating, and more time sharing videos and connecting with your fans."

Blogger's commenting system powered by Google+ has been disappointing so far. Google doesn't offer comment moderation tools in the Blogger interface and Google doesn't do a good job at detecting spam or at ranking comments. There's a lot of noise and Google even shows a list of people who +1'd the post.

{ Thanks, Adrià. }