Hangouts, evolved
Five features that would make textual Hangouts awesomus maximus.
#1 Shut up algorithm
Ever tried the Hangouts’ “biiiiuuunng” sound 15 times while being in the middle of having great sex or talking business with your most important client? Or maybe the combination?
Notifying is great. But doing it 15 times within a minute is plain wrong. I’d rather have a “Shut up” button than a “Mute” button when I get to the point where I need it.
How to improve:
- Improve the sound’s ability to blend in with the ambient sounds around me. I’m not talking real-time sound manipulation. Just make it more “subliminal”.
- Make it a two-step notification. Bing 1: “Someone is saying something”. Bing 2 (after maybe 10 seconds): “Someone answered and they keep talking and talking”. That’s basically all I need to know.
- Or just create 5 levels of volume, decreasing it every time a new message is received for a certain period of time and then auto-mute. Wake up after an hour and reset the volume level.
#2 Jump me
After knowing that my friends have been talking for an hour or so, I might want to catch up with the conversation or at least comment on some of the most interesting subjects. To do that I need to figure out exactly where I went off the conversation. That’s not so easy. It’s a lot of trial and error until I finally find my last comment. Thanks for the eye workout.
How to improve:
- Introduce a floating “Go to my last comment” button at the top.
- Or start me out at where I left off and introduce a floating “14 new messages” button at the bottom of the screen that takes me to the end of time.
#3 Reader’s digest
When I actually go offline my very talkable friends keep the conversation going about one crazy (but interesting) subject after another. They are like that. They talk. A lot.
I want Hangouts to solve the problem I get when I’m back online. I want Hangouts to present their conversations to me in an easy and digestable way.
How to improve:
- Introduce a dashboard of all the conversation subjects that my friends have been discussing since I went offline to actually get some work done. The subjects are generated by an intelligent text algorithm that is able to figure out where and when the talkers change subject in any given conversation — that would be an easy task for Ray Kurzweil. Imagine a 4-split-dashboard that shows the subjects as headlines with an option to scroll for more, if any. When tapping on a subject you get injected into that conversation only, with an option to comment at the end of the thread.
#4 Read on the toilet
I actually give a shit about what my friends think, but also need a little vacation every now and then. When I’m back and want to catch up, Hangouts really makes my life difficult.
How to improve:
- Introduce a way to export everything discussed since last exit to mail, instapaper, Pocket or whatever read-later service out there.
#5 Talkshows
Even though Skype basically offers the same group logic, there’s something about the “Hangouts” name. It makes me want to move more casual conversations here. Funny how a name can influence behavioral psychology in that way. Besides that, everything just flows and feels better in Hangouts. It’s more human. Skype feels so … rigid … even robotic at times.
Since we are hanging out, why not use it as a way to interview people in a casual setting?
How to improve:
- Introduce a way to invite someone for an interview, either real-time or time-shifted.
- Make a public (or permission-driven) landing page that “readers” can go to, to participate in the interview either real-time or just to discuss an interview from yesterday.
- The interviewer would constantly be fed with potential questions from real users that are interested in the person being interviewed or the subject discussed.
To Google’s legal department: Google is hereby granted an irrevocable, perpetual, world-wide right of use to the suggestions described in this article.
