Google's new iPhone app basically exists to help you watch cat videos with your friends
Watching videos with your friends just got a lot more fun — or interactive, at least.
Uptime, a new app from Google launched Monday, is designed to let you watch online videos with groups of people. It has a kitschy and fun interface, and you can react to the videos in real time with typed comments or animated emoji reactions. As you watch the video, your profile picture moves along a square timeline to indicate your progress to your friends.
The app was developed as part of Area 120, an incubator within Google where employees apply to work on experimental new products.
Google and YouTube have slowly but surely been developing ways to bring video-watchers together. Last year, Youtube introduced a messaging feature for users to share videos and a "Community" tab for fans to interact with creators. But Uptime is a fresh new take, combining group messaging with collaborative viewing. It seems to take visual inspiration from apps like Snapchat.
For now, the app is is an experiment and independent of YouTube, but it's possible the company will connect the two in the future.
The app is available on iOS and is currently invite only. You can download Uptime here and check the Uptime Twitter account for invite codes.
Freia Lobo wrote about Tech News for Mashable in NYC. You can follow her on twitter at @freialobo
