Yesterday I was involved in a Google + hangout with Brian of Hot Blog Tips and Mitch of I'm Just Sharing. We got together to brain storm ideas for the Hot Blog Tips Newsletter that we all participate in. It was a very productive way to share ideas without the hassle of emailing our ideas back and forth.
Anyway, Mitch had ask if there was a way to do Screen sharing and I told him no. Well, smack me stupid (as if that hadn't already been done). Today I pop over to ReelSEO.com and see an article titled Using Video With Google Plus for Business Pages and at the bottom of the post they talk about the New Extra Features added to G+!
Yepper doodles…you can now screen share in a G+ Hangout. All you have to do is when you start the hangout look for the text link, below the Add People and the Green Hangout button, that says Try Hangouts with Extras. Click that and you will see it load.
When a new person joins the hangout they will also be loaded in with the extra features.
Yes, I made Brad do a hangout with me so I could see how it worked. Who cares that Brad was not even home…he left his mail logged in and I just helped him join the hangout he didn't even know happened (until he walked in the door).
So what are the new Extra Features s of me testing it?
The Hangout Originator can Mute or Block other participants in the hangout! "Hey, STHU I'm talking!" *Hits Mute*
At the top you will see share screen, when you click that a new window opens that allows you to pick a screen on your machine that you would like to share in the hangout.
While it says on the side of the Hangout window that sharing Google Docs is not yet supported…if you have a regular word doc open on your machine, you can share that. But, it is like a screen shot so if you are editing the Word doc during the hangout…updates will not be shown in the hangout window. You would need to Stop Sharing Screen and then re-share the doc to show updates.
A bummer is that the images in the Hangout are small. I bet my kid could read them but I sure can't. I did not find a way to make the images bigger.
Oh holy shit…I see now as I am writing this that you CAN see me editing my Word Doc on the hangout screen. So ignore the part above where I said that you couldn't edit in live screen. See, you kept reading so you get the latest and greatest info. You also get to see that I screw up as I go sometimes. LOL!
Ok, so I pulled up a web page in Firefox and shared it on my hangout screen. Yes, it shows in real time that I switched pages, opened tabs, scrolled…everything is right there as I do it! BONUS!!!
Now, how do I get the damned shared page bigger? ARGH!
Ok, I am going to live through this, I don't need to see the shared screens…I should be happy just knowing they are there even if I CAN"T read them.
So this is a new feature being tried out on Google + and I foresee in the near future that they may give us all the capability to record and upload our hangout directly to YouTube. Oh, that could put a hurtin on the webinar sites that charge for this but, oh well.
Anyway, you all know where to find me if you want to try out these new features and have no other friends willing to talk with you. LOL!
Oh, just remember that the Extra features are in a TRIAL stage. Don't get all huffy if it isn't doing exactly what you want. I am sure they will be making it all better as we go.
Sheryl