Essentially, Hangout is the real-time multi-person video chatting application that is part of the Google+ social network.
Back in September, the search engine giant released a preview of the Hangout API, and the service is also the first piece of Google’s social segment to have a proper API, but on Wednesday the Google+ team announced that not only will the Hangouts API comes out of preview, it has added a new Apps section making it much more tempting for developers by enabling them to share their apps with all Google+ community!
Bear in mind, the Hangout apps menu originally has a handful of third-party apps that include games and office-friendly services such as whiteboard–and slideshow-sharing. Users will need to download an app the first time they use it, unless they are beginning through a start button coded into another website. The apps menu will subsequently show a list of recently used apps.
“Incorporating an API around Hangout, while it is a small piece of technology, has broader significance because it really helps [Google] assemble yet another leg to stand on in terms of getting consumers, and potentially even enterprises at a later point, embedded with their platform and services,” said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner.
With Hangouts providing a platform for all these kinds of events, now developers of all range will be able to create Hangout apps. The good news is that Hangout app building should be recognizable to people who build web apps as it is essentially just that. Google describes it as just “a big window inside the Hangout UI.”
Basically, for the most part, the starter set of Hangout apps are designed for having fun, playing games and goofing around to getting serious work done, the apps use the Google+ social video tool to make the most of face-to-face, real-time interaction.
In fact, appearing much excited, Google’s Amit Fulay in a post states that users will be seeing a new “Apps” menu option inside Google+ Hangouts displaying recent and featured apps. The apps will be gradually rolled out to all Google+ users.
In any case, Google’s recent announcement, no doubt suggests that the first few third-party Hangout apps are finally available to fiddle with. These are located within the Hangout itself, and can be accessed by clicking the new “Apps” button. Hangouts will be also be sorted into “Featured” and “Recent” groups here.
The full list of new Hangout Apps includes:
- +Aces Hangout, for playing poker with friends, face-to-face-to-face
- Clubhouse Challenge by +Bravo, for testing your pop culture IQ against other teams
- +Cacoo, for wire-framing, mind-mapping and diagramming with others
- Google Effects, for trying on headwear, eyewear or facial hair
- +Scoot & Doodle, for drawing and coloring with the people you care about
- +SlideShare, for co-viewing presentations, docs and videos
New Hangout games include the poker-themed Aces Hangout, a pop-culture quiz game from Bravo, Scoot and Doodle (a drawing game), and Google Effects, which lets you try on new facial hair or eyeglasses à la Wooly Willy. Arguably the two most practical new arrivals, SlideShare’s app, which lets participants go over slide presentations and other documents face-to-face, and Cacoo, which is used for wire-framing, mind-mapping, and diagramming with others.
Moreover, on the Google+ developers blog, Fulay further explained that devs can easily share their Hangout apps by posting a link to the app inside Google+ or by adding a Hangout button to another web page. “In either case, anyone who clicks will start a new hangout with your app running inside,” Fulay wrote.
The update for Hangouts appear to be rolling out gradually, so you can expect to see the Apps button appear within Hangouts sometime today. You can see the full list of new apps here.