I remember a year or two ago, Youtube integrated a contact import tool that slurped all your contacts from Gmail and added them as contacts on Youtube. This tool sucked so bad that I wrote a post about it, and I still get a few visits on it every day (0.6% of my traffic in last 30 days).
Well today Youtube is back at it:
If you've logged in to YouTube and sent a video to a friend's email address, or if you have your YouTube account linked to a Gmail account, we will use this information to help identify your friends who already have YouTube channels. You'll only see channels whose owners have allowed themselves to be found by others who have their email address.
Ok I need Google Translate here! What do you want to do with what how where? eh?
As much as I believe that Youtube is the best Web-based consumer video technology ever created, I think it will just suck forever at connecting friends. Why? As long as Youtube wears Friendconnect's dirty underwears, Youtube's social features will smell like dead cockroach, and no one will ever want to get close to that.
Google, you want an advise for connecting real friends on Youtube? Try Facebook Connect!
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