G+ > Skype

I spoke at the University of Kansas the other day. Kansas is far away so I gave the talk by video. We did it using a G+ hangout, and it worked really well, much much better than when I gave a talk via Skype. With G+, I could see and hear the audience clearly, and they could hear me just fine while seeing my slides (or my face, I went back and forth). Not as good as a live presentation but pretty good, considering.

P.S. And here’s how to do it!

Conflict of interest disclaimer: I was paid by Google last year to give a short course.

5 thoughts on “G+ > Skype

  1. If you want the slides to be even more clear (and you have an extra computer/laptop) then you could create a second G+ account to join the hangout, fullscreen the slides and use that computer to present from. Then the other computer and G+ account could share the video and audio of you giving the talk. Viewers could then switch between the two at will. Voila, high res slides plus Andrew’s beautiful smiling face!

  2. I’d like to try the G+ hangout. It will be curious, though, if we start saying “I was in City C” when I was only in a virtual hangout, some of whose members were really in city C. (Might it also be said that the others were in NYC to hear Gelman?)
    Anyway, aside from formal statistical issues in this case (which I haven’t analyzed), the supposition that there should be an evolutionary explanation, much less this particular one—evolutionarily speaking, that beauty is a trait more valuable for women than for men–is unfounded (based on a whole bunch of unfounded assumptions) and silly.

  3. Wonderful! If I may, I’ll quote you as another excellent example. I’ve been using g+ to connect people up to our work group’s seminar — it works remarkably well and with screen-capturing you can even have a decent recording. By the way, it’s useful to have a secondary account for screen sharing so that both your slides and your video is visible at the same time.

  4. I’ve certainly found G+ to be superior to Skype for collaborator meetings, but I’ve only tried it with 3 people. How many did you have in your hangout? How receptive was the seminar organizer? I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel suggesting such a thing to someone who invited me to give a talk.

  5. Never tried G+, but how much of this is really Skype/G+, and how much is the quality of the webcam/microphone at the other end ?

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