Saturday, July 30, 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Tuesday, July 19, 2011


Google+ Hangouts are starting to come into their own with the creation of a way to schedule and search them over at "Where to Hangout at Google+", http://gphangouts.com/ . Examples of how Hangouts are being used are quite varied:
- One news show allows lucky viewers to comment on news stories as they air.
- Writers are helping each other to get words "on paper".
- Dieters supporting each other.
- Musician discussions and sometimes performing.
- Religous study groups.
- One man has started a Cooking School.

The combinations are endless.
1) Video DJing much like the "good old days" when MTV played stood for Music TeleVision.
2) Foreign language studies. Highscool seniors (due to the G+ age restriction, 18+) and college students can open their laptops and practice their Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, German with people half the world away.
3) Software programmers can have impromptu coding sessions and bang out an entire application in a couple of hours.
4) Hardware hacking such product teardown sessions and hack sessions, of a particular type of phone or wireless router, for example.
5) TV. We all have our favorite shows that our Real World friends hate. Imagine watching your show while hanging out with fellow fans.
6) Mystery Science 3000, anyone? The irreverent side of the last item, making fun of B movies.
7) Career Networking. Looking for a job in a particular field?
8) Business Networking. Looking for business leads? Have a need to fill? Welcome to the new BNI.
9) Coaching sessions. Photographers are looking at this for image editing. This can be extended to a variety of different fields.

Currently there are some limitations to Google+ Hangouts. If you want to record you have to set up screen capture software on your computer prior. It isn't unusual for popular Hangouts to fill fast and there is no waiting list or view only feature yet. If you have a user get out of control or off-topic, there are only limited controls available.

What ideas do you have for Google+ Hangouts?
List of the latest hangouts at Google+ (GooglePlus). Visit them, or announce and schedule your own hangout.