YouTube comments: now powered by Google Plus

In an effort to curb the spam comments on YouTube and perhaps another attempt by Google to get more people active on its social play, the platform has announced a new commenting system that will be powered by Google Plus.

The system will be launching on channel discussion tabs as early as this week before rolling out to all videos over the next few weeks and months. The best part about it, according to YouTube, is it will automatically rank comments and feature threaded and private conversations. So you get the most relevant stuff rather then random people clogging up your feed.

“When it comes to the conversations happening on YouTube, recent does not necessarily mean relevant,” said YouTube in a blog post. “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.”

The key changes with the new commenting system, according to Google, are:

• Comments you care about move to the top: 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.
• Join the conversation publicly or privately: 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.
• Better ways to moderate comments: 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.

Google has been consolidating all its products to include Google Plus since launching the social network two years ago. Currently every registered Gmail account is automatically given a Google Plus account. This new development could help YouTube finally get rid of the spammers but also help Google get more activity on its social network.