updating hangouts, a new logo, +planning for Indiegogo campaign

Hello again; I wanted to update you on the progress of my google hangouts the creation of a new logo, and the launch of an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for taking the youtube show on the road.

 

Google Hangouts Status

 

The one thing I have learned about google hangouts is that I am still learning. For the past month I had been struggling with the process of starting the hangout and inviting the people on my list who have asked to participate. At first, I thought this was solely caused by a change in the screen you use when logging into a hangout. After three weeks I discovered that I was responsible or at least partly so. I heard an alert from my screen reader about drop box. It reminded me that I use a plug in on my site that routinely backs up my website to drop box. It does this at a pre determined time every week. And yes you guessed it, I had accidentally set the time for this back up to the same time as the hangouts. My computer just couldn't handle the combined strains of a video call, system back up, and a screen reader. After reseting the back up to midnight like it should be, last week's show started much more smoothly. It only took me about two minutes to have the session live and the guests invited. I am just happy I figured it out.

 

Sharing Images And Videos

 

I do have some good news to share. Thanks to help from my friend and hangout regular Chelsea Stark I learned how to share my screen with people during a hangout. This means that I can now share images and even videos from my computer with the audience and have them become part of the video call. They are then included when the hangout is backed up to youtube for later viewing. The instructions were pretty straight forward, but given my experience with Google; I didn't want to try it without practicing first. So Chelsea joined me in a regular hangout to practice. In addition to telling me what she was seeing on her end, she also made suggestions as to what files were good enough to share online. She also explained to me about making sure videos were set to play in full screen. It didn't work perfectly when i did it online, but it did work. And now I feel confident I can share media during the hangouts. I plan to use this to discuss equipment or share interviews with the audience. In the next section I'll tell you how we used this in the process of coming up with a new site logo.