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Hangouts allow for groups of friends or colleagues have an intimate
face-to-face conversation, but the “On Air” feature of the service allows you to
broadcast to the masses. The President Of The United States Of America has taken part in these conversations, but anyone can set up
their own. Today, the Hangouts team has introduced some new functionality that
make participating in a live On Air a little bit easier.
Up
until now you haven’t been able to do anything other than watch the live
broadcast as it happens, which is nice until you have to run to the kitchen to
grab a drink or pause to take a phone call. Today, viewers can now rewind your
broadcast no matter where they are during the live filming process.
Additionally,
On Air videos will immediately be published instead of carrying the normal
waiting period where you’ll get the infamous “processing…” dialogue.
The only
negatives that I see to this is that it slows down the ramp up time it takes to
start your broadcast, so you should buffer some time in to get started before
your actual scheduled “live” time:
Other
tweaks in this push include higher quality versions of a Hangout On Air via
your mobile device, which is nice since these can be kind of grainy, depending
on your connection at the time. Additionally, live broadcasts will now start
without having to refresh a page, which was a real pain in the ass. Now if you
visit a page that has the embedded On Air player, it will just automagically
start playing.
The
Hangouts product has made its way into many of Google’s services, including its
mobile offerings on Android and even Glass. The usecase for Hangouts widely
vary, but Google has been dogfooding it way before its release. The “On Air”
option has the attention of both local and national broadcasters, giving them
away to connect to audiences in a way more intimate way. [Source]
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