YouTube Leanback will soon offers its videos to television

YouTube, which is a part of the Google Empire, has just released an exciting new service called Leanback. Viewers will be able to live stream programs on YouTube right to their television sets and connect and share watch they are watching with their Facebook friends.

Leanback is still in its infancy as a beta version and only functions with a computer right now. Google has high hopes that the new service will be as prolific as Facebook. This is just one more way the company is breaking into social media, in addition to Google Buzz and rumored Google Me.

In order to get started, you need to be registered with YouTube and login.  Unlike a computer, you will not need a mouse to navigate the channels.  All of this is done through the arrows on a standard keyboard and the enter or return key.  Similar to a dvr, you can pause and play the video that is being viewed.

YouTube will also be offering a paid rental service that can be customized. Videos that are on the website already will remain free. Leanback not only gives people a greater choice of programming, but also allows full control of what to watch.  The connection to Facebook should also give this new service a big boost in popularity.