Google's Hangouts Changes To P2P

Many artists and bands use Google's Hangouts On Air to engage with their fans. This includes everything from mini-concerts to online meet and greets (I use it as part of Webinarjam for my webinars), and while it was reliable, there was always a question with its audio quality, especially when it came to music.

Google has now rolled out Hangouts 7.0, and while it has a number of cool features, the main upgrade is that it now uses a peer-to-peer connection, or P2P, between Hangout users who are on the call.

The reason is to make the calls more efficient, and as a result, take the audio and video quality up a notch to generally improve the experience.

Previously, the call would go through Google's servers, and while the company has what many consider one of the most robust backbone's in the world, the connection was always as solid as you'd expect, hence the move to P2P.

One of the potential downsides of using the P2P connection though is that each user's IP address is revealed, which means their location could be discovered and their privacy compromised as a result.

There's talk that the P2P feature may be selectively disabled in the future, but that's not the case at the moment.

So if you're a Hangouts users, enjoy the new features and increased quality. If you live in an area where you'd like to protect your IP address and privacy, maybe it's better to use another platform for the time being.

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Google Launches A Dedicated Hangouts Site

As predicted, Google has begun the process of spinning off its popular Hangouts from Google+ by launching a new dedicated Hangouts site.

The new site allows you to do everything from instant messaging to one-on-one video calls to the killer app of G+ - group Hangouts, or Hangouts On Air.

The new site looks good and is easy to use compared to Google+. There's a navigation panel on the left side that allows you to switch between your phone contacts, chat contacts and conversations, but the main part consists of the big three buttons in the middle of the screen (see the graphic on the left). These allow you to immediately initiate a video call, phone call or message.

Everything is pretty much the same as it is in G+ after you initiate a call.

This is only the latest step in dismantling Google+ as Photos was spun off from the service in February.

While not a success as a social network, Google+ did have a few killer features in Photos and Hangouts, and thankfully they'll continue to live on.

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Google Begins The Breakup Of Google+

There were a lot of big hopes for Google+ as a rival to Facebook when it was launched in 2011, but the social network has never quite lived up to the hype surrounding it.

Even though it boasts 540 million  active users, the adoption rate has leveled off, especially during the last year.

Now it looks like Google is taking the first step in splitting some of the most well-liked features of Google+ off, as the company announced that the Photos feature will become a standalone app and the rest of G+ will go on as Streams, although the Google+ name will remain (at least for now).

Since it's only just been announced, there's no additional information about what might happen to you existing photos on G+.

There's no word on what might happen with Google Hangouts yet, but it's expected that the feature will also find a new home as well.

Hangouts may be the most popular part of G+, especially for artists and bands, but the problem is that since not all of your fanbase is on the network, it limits your reach.

If Google were to split Hangouts off into a separate app, it would be a far more useful tool to artists, bands and musicians, as well as businesses that now rely on Skype.

Here's hoping that Google figures this one out sooner rather than later and has Hangouts follow Photos off on its own.

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