The Boston Ruby Group will be streaming live via Google Hangouts on Air | Hacker News Reader

The Boston Ruby Group will be streaming live via Google Hangouts on Air

reefpoints.dockyard.com

60 pointsbcardarella4 comments

Hangouts "On Air" is such a fantastic technology, and content creators are just starting to discover it. It truly is the "killer app" for Google+ as well as YouTube, and I honestly can't wait to see how people end up using it.

I personally didn't think much of it until I started running into various people and groups hosting sessions. For instance, just this past Tuesday, the Transit of Venus was occurring, and a group of professional astronomers[1] hooked up multiple camera feeds from powerful telescopes, and discussed all sorts of topics in science, and took questions from viewers.

It started gaining viewers until one of the casters was pulled off for an interview by the Guardian, and then Natalie Villalobos [2], one of the Google+ Community Managers showed up, and just started chatting with the guys about how the Hangout is going, and how popular it is, as well as her personal interests in astronomy, etc [3].

It was informal, informative, and the first example of compelling usage for the "On Air" feature I have witnessed. I can only imagine many more good things come out.

[1]: http://youtu.be/t79iec2b-3M

[2]: https://plus.google.com/109895887909967698705/about

[3]: http://youtu.be/t79iec2b-3M?t=2h34m59s

I'm really excited about Hangouts "On Air". I think there are a bunch of things I would change if I could. For example, I think the stream to YouTube itself should only show the focuses stream and not all of the multi-channels. I would also like to see the max number of connections in the hangout increased. An API would be awesome so I can generate Hangouts from a script.

After some more experience with running BostonRB's meeting over hangouts I'll follow up with a blog post on what we have liked and what pain points we've had.

I don't know if we are referring to the same thing (excuse my Google+ ignorance), but I think Al Jazeera English uses these hangouts in their show The Stream.

I attended the last meet up in Boston whilst visiting and I have to say this Ruby group is pretty special. I will, for sure, be watching via Hangouts when it goes live!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com