Google+ launches Hangouts On Air globally

Hangouts is Google+'s free online video conferencing service. A normal Hangouts session can be made available to a maximum of 10 individuals. With Hangouts On Air, the session is broadcast globally to an unlimited number of viewers.

So far, this feature has been used by President Barack Obama to broadcast an interview session with selected US citizens, by musicians and by brands including Toyota and McDonald's Japan. 

Toyota broadcast a Hangout session between Australian car-bloggers and its chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada, while McDonald's Japan launched a new burger by broadcasting a tasting session via Hangouts.

"Brands need a reason to invest in Google+. Many have put so much effort into gaining followership on Facebook that they see no reason to do the same on Google+. Features like Hangout on Air, however, give them a reason to be on our platform," said Ryan Hayward, Google+ product marketing manager, during a press conference. Hayward said that the network aimed to launch "a new feature a day on average". 

As the feature has only just been rolled out globally, the majority of brands have yet to use it, Hayward added. "Hangout needs planning, so the launch hasn't triggered a thousand hangouts."

So far, Google+ has attracted more than 170 million users and over a million brand pages. While many are opting to replicate the content on their Facebook pages, some are choosing to use the different platforms for different things. 

"Cadbury uses the circles function on Google+ page to gain consumer insights. They have Hangout focus groups with select circles of trusted customers," said Hayward.

The network has also launched new analytic service, Ripples, which will let brands track the reshares of a post and see who in their follower-base has the strongest influence. 

He noted that Google does not regard Google+ as a standalone entity, but aims to "add Google+ as a social spine across all Google's products and services".

Features like "search + your world" and Youtube's landing page which now shows videos a viewer's friends have wathched are examples of this added social layer. Gmail too shows a user's Google+ profile as part of their email profiles.

"The focus now is on building a seamless user-ecosystem," Hayward said. "We don't need to monetise Google+; it's really not our priority. Instead we'll be improving existing products and services, including Google AdSense, using social."