One of the most interesting features of Google’s new social media service, Google+, is Google+ Hangout On Air. A group of people get onto G+ all at once, fire up their computers’ cameras, and have a conversation. Google puts whoever is speaking at the moment on the main screen. You can join a hangout if it’s public or if you have an invitation, and–coolest of all–it automatically records the conversation and throws it onto Youtube.
Right now only a few people have access to this service. I jealously watched fellow Discover blogger Phil Plait talk about exoplanets last month. (You can too.) And then I got invited to join the folks at the Singularity Hub for a hangout, too. It’s up on Youtube, and you can also see it embedded here below. We talked about all sorts of things–from mind-controlling parasites to bird flu to using viruses to cure antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the future of ebooks and much more.
I deeply crave this technology. I used to participate in a primitive forerunner of this, known as Bloggingheads. I bowed out due to editorial differences, but I still think the basic system is an exciting medium. I hope Google opens up their Hangout On Air service to more people, because it could be a whole lot of fun.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:22 pm
I enjoyed listening in, thank you.
February 28th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Yes. A thousand times ‘yes’. I understood and agreed with your reasons for leaving bloggingheads, but it also meant the loss of those conversations; MTS filled the gap for a while, but that came to an end as well; I love your conversations and imagine they impart, if slightly, a kind of feel for how your interviews with scientists go when you are interviewing them for an article; like “raw data” or something;
May 16th, 2012 at 10:31 am
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