Thumbs Up If You're Reading This In 2013!

YouTube has became a very large part of many people's online lives. While it has many practical uses such as showing friends music they may not have heard before, "how to" videos to learn how to do a new hair style or craft and funny viral videos to turn your day around, there is one common thing throughout all of YouTube: terrible comments. 

These are the comments that are so offensive, you hope that your grandma doesn't know how to use the internet and somehow stumbles upon them. They insult entire groups of people, use offensive language, make comments about your mom or girlfriend and even manage to bring Justin Bieber insults to videos completely unrelated to the Canadian pop star. 

YouTube(or more accurately, YouTube's owner, Google) knows this is a problem. The thumbs up/down system has been abused since it's introduction. Comments that are witty or funny to people will be given a thumbs up and usually gets bumped up higher on the page. People that are trying to have actual conversations on a video are covered up by people wanting to post their opinions that are based on emotions, not facts, and usually have nothing to do with the subject material. Not all videos on YouTube are meant for intellectual conversation, but it's impossible for a lot of people to even discuss a song they like or a joke that was funny because of the spam or nonsense comments on the video.

However, Google has created a grand solution for the YouTube comment problem. Now, in order to participate in discussions and write comments on the website, you must have a Google+ account. The people behind YouTube say that this will encourage higher quality comments and allow for more features, such as privatizing comments to your Google+ circle and tools for the owners of the videos to moderate the comments posted. The most relevant comments will be pushed to the top through a three part system that judges comments:

1. Community engagement by the person commenting
2. Up-votes for a particular comment
3. The person commenting's reputation

But this could be a problem for the casual YouTube user. As of September 24, you must have a Google+ comment to be involved in page discussions and post comments. Google insists that this is not a problem due to the fact that Google+ is the second largest social networking platform behind Facebook. This is mainly due to the fact that anyone that uses a Gmail email account has Google+. But how many people actually use their Google+ accounts or know that they have one? 

Google+ has struggle to break into the "Big Four" of social media, even though Google has owned YouTube since 2006. While Google+ has a much slicker interface than Facebook, most people have not deserted their Facebook to jump on the Google+ band wagon. This transition is not forcing people to use their real names on YouTube. Users will still be allowed to have usernames completely unrelated to who they are that are connected to a pseudonym Google+ page that is still affiliated with the actual Google+ page of the user. 

YouTube may want the average user to think that this is a move they are making in order to help clean up the wasteland that is YouTube video comments, and in an ideal world this would be true. However, I believe this action is more rooted in trying to push Google+ to the front in a world dominated by Facebook and Twitter. By requiring users to have accounts to post videos, celebrities and brands may become more involved in the world of Google+. From a business stand point, this is an almost flawless way to attract more customers to your product. It creates a need for consumers to connect with your brand. But for a power house brand like Google, the move seems desperate. 

Do you think that forcing YouTube users to get Google+ accounts will help or hinder Google+ in the social media world? Does it change your opinion of YouTube? If you haven't already, is it possible you'll use Google+ more? Why or why not? How do you think YouTube users will respond?