Skip to content

Major Updates to Google Plus Hangouts, Photos, and Videos

2 minute read

mdblue storagetwo

Despite a roughly 45 minute delay caused by a power outage in the San Francisco area, +Vic Gundotra from the Google+ team announced some of the biggest updates since the platform was introduced.

Before he got into the updates, Vic reiterated how much Google+ has grown over the past few months:

  • 540 million active users across Google
  • 300 million active users in the Google+ stream
  • 1.5 billion photos uploaded to Google+ every week
  • 20X increase in video uploads

Hangout logo

Google+ Hangouts

Since the introduction, Google+ Hangouts have been a contentious topic for users. Today, Hangouts received the biggest update since the release, which should ease some concerns. A few notable updates include location sharing, sms support and support for animated gifs.

If you’ve attended or held a Hangout on Air, you know how difficult those can be as well. Fortunately, Hangouts on Air received some updates as well, which should be really exciting for anyone who broadcasts on a regular basis. Going forward, broadcasters will experience a better way to plan, promote and manage their Hangouts on Air by creating On Air specific events and more easily managing those involved.

Photos

Perhaps the most exciting update to Google+ was the introduction of Google’s famous auto-awesome feature to videos. With auto-awesome videos you can automatically combine video clips, add filters and background music to make your best movie yet. Some other updates include:

  • full-size backups and background sync for iOS
  • deep learning in highlights and search
  • dial auto-enhance up, down or off
  • new HDR scape filter in Snapseed

To view Vic’s presentation in its entirety, check it out on YouTube.

Categories

Sign up for our newsletter