Other social media systems are adding video chat and related features. Plus was designed from the ground up with these fun and powerful things built in!
In this chapter, we will see (literally see) how Hangouts work. We will explore:
What Hangouts are and how we use them
Setting up a webcam or other video input
Creating your own Hangouts
Joining existing Hangouts
Hanging Out from YouTube
Here I am in an enjoyable hangout a few nights ago (me on the far right). As we'll see again, several times in this chapter, there is a row at the bottom of every Hangout session showing everyone in the video chat who has their camera on (not everyone does, in fact you can use just a microphone).
The person speaking will be shown in a larger video just above this row, but more of that shortly.
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First, let's discuss exactly what a Hangout is in Google Plus.