The YouTube & Google Account Cluster &$%#@$

Posted on Jul 21, 2010

I want my GOOGLE Account!!!!!

My latest “OMG…you have to be flippin kidding me” problem is unlinking a Google Account from a YouTube Account. In this case it’s MY Google Account and a client’s YouTube account.

Guess I just don't like being told NO!!!!!!

There are lots of forum and community posts from users that have the same problem that I did and in help there is this: Linked YouTube-Google Accounts : Learn More – YouTube Help and This: Phasing out classic YouTube password support for users linked to a Google Account : Solve a Problem – YouTube Help.

I thought I hit pay dirt when I saw this link was worth a try…but it didn’t work for me (http://www.youtube.com/my_account_unlink).

Then I read someone’s post that said they “Transferred the YouTube Account” and found:

If your current YouTube account is linked to a Google Account, it may be possible to transfer your YouTube account depending on when it was created. Some settings will be available to you and, unfortunately, some may not.

of course my situation apparently falls into the…“Some settings will be available to you and, unfortunately, some may not” arena.

So far the only issue is that I’ll be logged into my account and visit YouTube and want to comment, favorite, etc. and I’ll be doing it as “my client”. Not sure this particular client would appreciate some of my more “colorful” comments or some of my favorite music video choices. As far as updates, I’ll probably just handle uploads, and any necessary maintenance of their YouTube account until Google pulls their head out of their…well, you get the picture.

Google Accounts used to be associated with a Gmail but somewhere along the way things changed and you could establish a Google Account with a regular email. Of course, I missed that day in class and I think I created several unnecessary gmail accounts for the sole purpose of obtaining a Google Account.

I ran into the same exact problem with Google Voice. I did realize that you could not “unlink” you Google Voice and Google Account and assign it to another account. It became such a pain in the ass that I ended up chucking the business cards I got printed and signed up for a new Google Voice account making sure that I associated the right Google Account. Sound confusing…it IS!!! And it Sucks!

Managing all the Google Accounts/Logins and Google Apps logins can be daunting especially since you can’t be logged into two at the same time. I often have several different browsers and subsequent incognito windows open so that I can be logged into multiple services that unfortunately all use different Google Accounts. This is especially an issue when I am setting up Social Media accounts, products, rss feeds, etc. for clients. I usually set up a Google Account and possibly Gmail for my clients so that I can sign up and verify new account information.

I’ve been working on transferring most of my existing hosting clients to Google Apps for emails as well as introduce them to the “Cloud” mentality of collaboration with their staff as well as with me on projects, documents, etc. I’m really digging Google Apps and services such as docs, sites, and calendar.