Once it was announced that the Lincoln trailer would debut on a Google hangout many were perplexed. What IS a google hangout? Well, for most of you it’s probably something fun to do on the net. For me it’s my worst nightmare. Why? I hate video camera conversations. I suspect when the younger generations who use them now get up to my age they will hate them also. But nonetheless, the Age of Narcissism marches onward with webcams for every occasion. I watched a news anchor awkwardly shift from doing a regular news report to doing a Google hangout and I think I got the idea. It’s like a “circles” jerk only it’s done on camera. Wait, that sounds too vulgar. Imagine you have one guy in Iran, one woman in Syria, one in Pakistan, one in London and one TV anchor. Theoretically, they could all join the Google hangout, they allow up to ten, turn on their webcams and chat/share. So if you were watching that Google hangout you would see different people talking on Video screens from all over the place at once. So it’s like Skype or Gchat only it’s run through Google+.
Google describes it this way:
Hangouts let you catch up with friends and family, whether you’re at home on your computer or using the Google+ mobile app on the go. Up to 10 people can join a hangout, and it’s easy to invite specific friends or circles. So share the latest news and see everyone’s reactions live, or add apps to your hangout to watch YouTube clips together, play poker with your buddies or doodle with your kids when you’re away from home.
Google is trying to get the web population to use circles and hangouts so that Google+ isn’t forever known as a cyber ghost town. While I don’t find Google+ to be particularly useful for social networking – as in, my friends and family don’t hang out there – nor for breaking news communication and thought-sharing on a global scale (Twitter has that market cornered) Google+ has the best infostream of any of them. That’s because those who regularly use it tend to be tech savvy and motivated to find cool stuff. So where on Facebook you tend to see the same image recycled for months, G+ gives you new stuff every second, especially if you have a lot of circles.
But overall I agree that it’s still a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. I suspect it will ultimately become popular with news programs and perhaps as it’s being used with the Spielberg film. What I do like about it, though? The outside the box marketing aspect of it. That is, I think, pretty darned cool.
