Migrating from G+ Hangouts on Air to YouTube Live (Thanks, Nikki!)

I was in a serious panic a few nights back when I discovered my go-to strategy for meeting and sharing with my classes and hosting and archiving guest visits was kind of (but not really) going away.

Hangouts on Air was so, so easy to use. So when the news that Hangouts On Air was to move from Google+ to YouTube Live on September 12, right in time for the beginning of the school year, I was worried. I wanted to be ready to go.

It started out okay. I was fine with the instructions I discovered about setting up a Quick event, but the instructions for scheduling an event with both guests and participants and archiving said event were just not there. So I stayed up to all hours downloading, purchasing and (unsuccessfully) setting up the suggested encoders. I visited every trouble-shooting forum I could find, but strangely, it seems like others do not use HOA in the same way my TL and educator colleagues and I do.

Finally, in a crazed email, I reached out to the person I knew who loved Hangouts on Air as much as I did.  Nikki Robertson hadn’t yet attempted the shift.  We exchanged a couple more emails.

By the time I figured out that you can actually set up a Quick Hangout and invite guests in and archive your broadcast–though it’s not in any of YouTube’s support materials–Nikki had already gone way past that discovery and created a step-by-step tutorial and shared it in a Google Slides document in a blog post: Making the Move: Google Hangouts On Air Is Now YouTube Live.

Thank you, Nikki, for that clear explanation that should save so many others from sleepless nights.

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Filed under: Google, Google Apps, Google Hangouts, technology, video, webinars, youtube