Google__ The Missing Manual - Kevin Purdy [57]
The people you invite don’t have to click Yes or No—they can just ignore your invitation if they don’t have time to join you. The whole point of hangouts is that they’re semi-spontaneous “Let’s chat” invitations, not obligations. Keep that in mind when you’re inviting people to hang out—folks with day jobs, for example, might get annoyed if you send repeated hangout pitches during work hours. If someone you’ve invited to hang out tries to start their own hangout while yours is in session, they’ll receive a notice that your hangout is already happening so they can consider stopping by yours, instead.
NOTE
Just like posts and photos, you can make a hangout public, meaning anyone who finds the invitation in your stream or on your profile page can join in, and they can share the hangout even further when friends of those friends see that they’re in a hangout. That can be fun, and perhaps even helpful when you’re looking to meet up with a group of strangers, but you’ll definitely want to keep reading and learn what to do if things go sour.
Google states on one of its Google+ help pages that “No one owns a hangout,” meaning that anybody in the hangout can invite anybody else they’d like to join the hangout. So you may start a hangout with just a few select people, but one of those people could click the Invite button and send an invitation out to all their circles, or even set it as Public, and that invitation will show up in people’s streams. The invitation post may include your profile picture (except to people you have blocked) to show that you’re one of the participants. So hangouts aren’t a way to have a secret meeting—just like you wouldn’t hold a secret meeting on your front porch.
Hanging Out
CAMERA, MICROPHONE, AND SPEAKERS working? Check. Invitations sent? Check. Now that you’ve done all the prep work, go ahead and click the “Hang out” button on the hangout setup page. When you do, you’ll see the following graphic.
Aww. That robot looks so sad with all those balloons and no one to share them with. But no worries—your invitees probably just haven’t seen the link to your hangout yet. Remember the dorm room/front porch analogy—folks just need some time to wander by and join in. And hangouts aren’t like Skype calls (voice or video calls you make via the Internet), where your chat request “rings” each person individually. Give it some time, and people will start showing up, most likely.
As people start showing up, small versions of their video feeds show up at the bottom of the hangout window, just above the control buttons. (If somebody is going audio-only for this hangout, then you see their Google+ profile picture instead of a video feed.) Google+ tries to figure out who’s currently talking and puts that person’s video (or picture) in the upper part of the window and makes the image much larger than the tiny ones below. Google+ doesn’t do a perfect job of this, but it’s pretty good job at switching between speakers. You have to try a hangout or two to get the feel for it, but it’s really pretty natural after you settle in.
Down in the lower-right corner of the window are some handy controls. The Mute Video button temporarily turns off your webcam so the other people in the hangout can hear you but not see you (useful, for example, if your toddler niece wanders into the room to show you her new diaper-removing trick). When your video is muted, folks will see your profile picture instead of your video feed. The Mute Mic button turns off your microphone (in case you need to sneeze or answer the phone, say). Click either button a second time to undo its effect, or click the Unmute button that appears at the top of the hangout window. The Settings button takes you to the settings screen you saw on Inviting People to Hang Out.
TIP
When you’re in a hangout, it’s a really good idea to mute your mic if you need to type something,