I JUST FINISHED WALKING while sharing my morning view (a few minutes after the one with Jay Martin in the screenshot) with three others an ocean away. I was using Google Plus on my iPod Touch with an O2 Mifi Hotshot. It worked better than Facetime because it was a group chat.
Pundits will tell you that there's no real market for phones with front-facing cameras and they're right. The only people I've discovered who want to use cameras for live events on phones are truly techies, artists with new work in studios or journalists. I'm off to discover if there's an interest among educators too because I'm showing my little discovery during a CESI Meet in LIT-Thurles at 8PM on May 18, 2012. If you're interested in watching or talking, just join our Hangout on Google Plus.
As expected, using a Hangout to connect to several people while streaming data over the air is problematic. My connection faltered whenever my local data quality dropped between EDGE and HSDPA. I could hang longer while using just 2G connectivity when I muted my video source and just observed what was happening.
During my early morning connection, I learned what people thought about Ireland--a lot influenced by Pierce Brosnan. There's a "drinking like fish" stereotype still firmly entrenched about the Irish personality. And there are clever ways of keeping your household's Netflix queue filled with good titles worth considering. All these little tidbits percolated past me in a three minute Hangout. I think I'll do some more, first between work desks with colleagues in different parts of Ireland. I'll be the one with the iTouch. I expect to be joined by the occasionally wacky, such as the receptionist from Hogwarts (a voice I encountered during one Hangout).
Bernie Goldbach is http://gplus.to/topgold and he curates links about Google.
