This is a blog recommending the use of Quietube. Quietube is a handy little browser extension that removes all the clutter from YouTube allowing you to view only your selected video. Quietube removes all advertising, sidebar content, comments, and ratings.
Watch2gether is a neat site through which you can watch YouTube videos and host text chats about them at the same time. I've written about the service in the past, but it just got a facelift so I'd like to point it out again. It is really quite easy to use Watch2gether.