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"Google Hangouts has allowed its users to participate in text, voice and video chats since May 2013, when Google first launched the unified communications platform.\nBut that doesn't mean it floats everyone's boat. Even though the free chat service is useful and convenient, it could use some tweaks to make it even better. \nSee also: 14 Google Tools You Didn't Know Existed\nVarious upgrades and new features could be extremely beneficial to the Google Hangouts community. Below, we've rounded up a list of seven things we'd like to change about Google Hangouts.\n1. Online statuses\nCurrently, Google Hangouts allows us to see whether someone is online or not. If a user is online, a green circle appears over his or her profile picture, and in a given chat window there is a thin green line below the contact's name. These are the only indications that our contact may be around, and at first glance, it isn't very noticeable. \nAs a solution, we'd like to add a status feature to make people aware that we're online, away, idle, busy or offline. If we're away from the keyboard, we should be able to create a custom away message, such as \"I'm out to lunch\" or \"I'm in a meeting\" \u2014 something Gchat used to allow.\n2. Improve notifications\n\nWhen you miss a message and log into Gmail, the missed message becomes bold. We'd like to receive a noticeable alert or have the chat pop-up when we log into Gmail.When someone messages you while you're offline, the missed message becomes bold in your Hangouts list. The bold text, which is the same font size as text that has been read, blends in with the rest of your Google Hangout chats on the side of your Gmail account. By the time you see the message, it's probably old news. \nInstead, we'd like to see the conversation pop up, or send a noticeable alert or email so we know right away what we missed.\nOn that note, if you answer a message on one device, the alert should automatically disappear on other devices. Notifications need to be kept consistent across all platforms when possible. \n3. Search contacts within our networks\n If we search for \"John Smith,\" our results show every single person named John Smith, ever.\n\n\n\nGoogle Hangouts' search feature could using some tweaking. If we search for \"John Smith,\" our results show every single person named John Smith within the Google interface. Instead of displaying a global contact list, we'd like to have a built-in search tool to find people within our organization, contacts or Google+ Circles.\n4. Increase number of participants allowed in a Hangout\nCurrently, Google Hangouts video calls are limited to 10 video conference active participants. If you activate Google+ premium features, the limit increases to 15.\nBut to fully use Google Hangouts as a way to conduct team meetings, webinars, press conferences and more with people across the world, the limit should be increased anywhere to about 30 to 50 people.\n5. Drag and drop files to conversations\nRather than clicking on the camera icon and waiting for this pop-up window to load, dropping files directly into our conversations would be more efficient.\nImage: Screenshot Kyli Singh\n\n\nA drag-and-drop feature would be an efficient way to share photos, videos and documents. Rather than clicking the camera icon, waiting for a pop-up to load so you can select or drag files, dropping the file directly into the conversation \u2014 similar to the feature in Gmail \u2014 would be useful and save users time.\n6. Enlarge or full-screen windows when sharing screens\nWhen sharing your screen with others, it can be difficult to see. We'd like to enlarge or make the window go full-screen to fill up the wasted black space in the background.\nImage: Screenshot Kyli Singh\n\n\nWhen sharing your screen with others, it can be difficult to see what exactly is being shared. Your first thought is to take the document or browser full-screen, but that doesn't do much. \nThe size of the window stays the same and there is a lot of wasted black space in the background (see screenshot above). Without going into presentation mode in PowerPoint, presenting documents, slideshows or websites can be a pain to view. \nWe'd love to see an option that will allow us to enlarge or full-screen windows being shared.  \n7. Easily perform searches through chat logs\nSearching through your message history on Google Hangouts isn't very intuitive. \nTo search for chat logs in Gmail, you can use the search bar at the top to type in the keywords you're looking for \u2014 but by default, your results will be a mix of emails and chats. To limit your results to chats only, you have to type in label:chat [search term here].\nWe'd like to see an easier way to search through our chats, so we can pinpoint important information that our other messages buried. \n\n\n\n\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n BONUS: Google+ Hangouts: 4 Creative Ways People Are Using Group Video Chat\n\n\nGoogle+ Hangouts: 4 Creative Ways People Are Using Group Video Chat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1. Writer's Co-Working Hangout\n\nDo you like the idea of co-working, but wish there could be more cats? That's the innovative use of Hangouts from Mary Robinette Kowal, puppeteer and award-winning author of Shades of Milk and Honey.\nKowal explained the concept of \"Writer Hangouts\" to Mashable. \"They are a co-working thing and are very much like the idea of meeting people in real life at a coffee shop, but with the added benefit of having more control over your environment. As a writer, I'll often schedule writing dates at my local coffee shop, just to get myself out of the apartment. Writing can be so solitary sometimes.\"\n\"With the G+ Hangouts, I'm able to do the same thing, but with people from all over the world. At the last Hangout, we had people from Ireland, the Netherlands, and three of the U.S.'s timezones.\" \nWhile in the Hangout, the participants minimize the Hangout view when in the midst of writing, but stop for scheduled breaks where they can chat, socialze, generally have a water-cooler moment and (as in the screengrab above showing Rebecca Blain) show off their kitties. \n\"I'm lucky in that I live in a city with a lot of writers, so real life hangouts are easy,\" says Kowal, who offers some advice for anyone interested in starting their own Writer's Hangout. \"The Google+ Hangouts are fantastic for writers who feel isolated. They take the lonely out of writing.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. Cooking Lessons\n\nIf you love cooking and socializing, then a Google+ cooking Hangout might be for you. Self-confessed \"food geek\" Lee Allison saw the potential of Google+'s new video conferencing service, and has launched the Google+ Cooking School.\nAllison's \"number one cooking rule\" is \"never cook for someone when you can cook with someone.\" Participants pre-buy the list of ingredients, as posted on Google+ by Allison, and make delicious food under his instruction. Dishes tackled so far include potstickers, gyro flatbreads, poissons en papillote (fish wrapped in paper) and chicken paella, with more planned soon.\nThe cusinine-themed Hangouts have gained momentum quickly. \"We have always had full rooms. They are quite popular with several folks who return again and again. I'm hoping that my delivery, skills and technical production get better each time,\" says the web chef.\n\"The best part about Hangouts is how simple and effective they are. I love the immediacy and personal interaction.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3. Live Concerts\n\nLive music delivered via the web is nothing new, but Google+ has brought an intimacy that is wowing music fansand musicians alike.\nJazz guitarist Rob Michael has played on Google+, as has indie singer-songwriter Daria Musk. Musk started using Hangouts as a performance venue soon after the launch of the new service. \n\"I had just thought it would be fun to play a show where I didn't have to lug my amps through the rain,\" says Musk. \"I ended up discovering a global community of thousands of G+niuses [her Google+ fans] whose faces I will always know, whose excitement about my music I will always cherish, who will forever be in my heart.\"\nMusk's first Hangout concert was held on July 16. News soon spread around the social web and thousands of Google Plussers were soon vying for one of the 10 slots. The demand led Google's director of engineering, Chee Chew, to \"daisy-chain\" Hangouts so more people could view the show. It lasted for 6.5 hours. Since then Musk has performed twice more, putting in 7.5-hour performances.\nMusk told Mashable about that first performance. \"As I performed through the night in a little studio in the woods of Connecticut, I got to see the sunrise in Norway, watch little girls dancing to my songs on an Australian Sunday morning, see the city lights in Buenos Aires, the smiling face of a woman in Malaysia... G+ changed my life forever in a night.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n4. A Marathon Hangout \n\nIf Google gives you a new social media toy to play with, why not take it to the max? That's what Mark Olsen of FamilyLink.com and Phillip Olsen have done. \nThe pair has started the Google+ \"Marathon Hangout,\" a non-stop video chat session that began in Mark Olsen's basement at 5:45pm on July 20, 2011, and has since celebrated a solid week on air. \"The goal was to be the longest Hangout session ever and have the most interactions. This goal has been met,\" says Olsen.\nThose interactions have so far been astonishing. Available via Google+ and also streamed live over on HangOutOnGPlus, Olsen estimates as many as 5,000 people have joined in, with many more viewing the stream.\n\"It has been simply amazing to have people from around the globe come in and interact with us regarding many topics, but primarily about social media, Google+ and Google Hangouts,\" says Olsen.\nAs well as \"ordinary\" Plussers, Hangout participants have included Michael Dell, Michael Mozart of Fail Toys and even Google staffers who have been advising the Olsens (and their informal team of helpers).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/07/11/google-hangouts-changes/>