Notifications that people are hanging out quit showing up in our streams. I suspect that they quit showing up, because people quit inviting people to Hangouts the Old Fashioned Way – by Circle.
Inviting our Hangouts and/or My Drunk Hangouts circles initially sucked everyone in that circle (HUNDREDS of people) into a friggin text chat on our phones which is a front-runner for "most annoying thing ever" – especially when it's 2am, and you keep getting pinged every time someone asks "Hey, I'm sleeping! What's up!"
…so we quit inviting by circle, and I imagine most everyone else did, too – which eliminated the posts that used to show up, visible to those circles.
Maybe – just MAYBE +Jaana Nyström's tips will help us get back into the swing of things? I doubt it. I suspect strongly that there just plain aren't as many people hanging out every night as was the case back when tools like Hangout Canopy worked to find hangouts, and when you could invite people by circle, and not have them end up in a text chat – which is a 'feature' that I think is 'fixed' now, but the damage is done.
Many nights, we'd have a full room basically every night. I can't remember when the last time that happened. Sometime last spring, I think.
I miss those days. A lot.
Reshared post from +Jaana Nyström
Find ongoing Hangouts on Google+
These are either public or from your circles / external circles.
Create a search on Google+ for #hangoutpost , select "Hangouts" option under the "More" menu and change from "Best of" to "Most recent".
Here is the direct link for the search:
https://plus.google.com/s/%23hangoutpost/hangoutsRemember to change the option to "Most recent" like in the image:
More about Google+ search:
http://googleplushelper.blogspot.fi/2012/11/the-best-feature-of-google-search.html
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I would love to do another drunken hangout night. Let me know if you start inviting people for that again.
I was also wondering where hangouts went. I met so many cool people early on and now that I can't find hangouts with peeps I know I'm not meeting more people in G+ as easily.
It seemed like as soon as I got a computer capable of handling hangouts, they dried up…
The way that hangouts have been redesigned makes it seems as if they were made with a "elite" inner-circle in mind. (I can only imagine why that is.) They're hard to find though the official channels, and annoying to deal with if you're constantly re-forming them. It seems much more oriented to workmates and not the constantly changing social scene.
As of today; the client, once the worst aspect of the hangout platform, is the best aspect. It's nearly impossible to meet or attract users to those hangouts though, so any hangout circle will eventually dwindle down – even a well organized and populated circle. Just ask +Brett Bjornsen about that.
Also, hey, +Jonathon Barton/+Audrey Lee — Ya'll are never online anymore. Sad panda.
I definitely miss having a notification in the notification box that said "hey, you've been invited to a hangout"… it was less invasive than the annoying ring a ring ading bs hangouts create now… it's not a phone call damnit, it's a text message app with video capability… quit treating it like a random phone call google! I don't need every google device in the house blowing up when someone wants to chat (or group chat, or video call)… le sigh… ah for simpler times when we could say "hey, I'd like to 'hangout', I'll toss a 400 person invite list out there and see who drops by"… I get that the new way works for pre-planned smaller groups (like "friends and family" type communication)… Google just doesn't get it sometimes… it's all or nothing with these devs… have constant barrages of notifications, or none at all… where's the granularity? frrbt…
anyways, spot on with the op… pretty sure most people have stopped hanging out as much, and those that do are difficult to find because there's no notification and you have to be lucky if you see a to-circles or extended circles invite wiz by in the stream… hey, but at least I'm catching up with my dvr and netflix queue without those pesky hangout timesinks… /cry
+Dorian Trent We were moving, then +Audrey Lee's college roommate hit town for the weekend, and then we were catching up on Season 8 of Supernatural.
Also, +Audrey Lee's job involves her sitting in front of her computer at home for 8-9 hours at a time, so when she's done? She's DONE. =(
We need to play some FIASCO. +Brett Bjornsen It'd be right up your alley, I think. =)
I'm down for Fiasco on the condition that we pregame. Heavily.