Google+ is innovative, true. But so are its users.

One innovation on Google+ is the ability to conduct multi-party video chats. While one-on-one video chatting has been around for a while on a number of platforms, multi-party conferencing can get complicated and expensive. Google+ offers a new model, and it’s free.

Google+ Hangouts

On Google+ video chats are called Hangouts. Up to 10 people can join a Hangout for a high-quality (assuming you have a decent Interent connection) video chat experience. What’s interesting is that the system displays the video streams in a new way.

In a Hangout, all the video streams are displayed in a sort of thumbnail view across the bottom of the screen. A single video stream is shown above that, on the main part of the screen. That main stream automatically switches to focus on the person speaking at the moment. This makes the platform very easy to use, more natural and engaging. Sure, there’s likely to be some snafus with this new approach. But there’s also sure to be some innovations. Here are two great examples that I came across.

The Internet’s First Google+ Hangout Game Show

+John Herman is an artist and writer, and emerging media consultant. He’s also a game show host. Check out what he did this last Monday, and plans to continue for the next few Mondays.

John hosted his first show and it seems like it was pretty fun for all who joined in. He’s going to keep at it every Monday for a while, so it’ll be interesting to see how things develop.

And a Yoga Class!

Also this week on Google+ – yoga! +Danielle Herman, a public school teacher, gardener and yogini used some of her summer vacation time to share her yoga expertise. And judging by the comments, it went over quite well, with new ideas brewing already on how to make it better.

Lots of excitement and ideas flowing

These experiments were well-received and there’s lots of chatter about how to improve, innovate, and experiment further. Here are some great comments from the posts related to these experiments:

“Bringing people together like this with G+ is amazing, truly an evolution of social networking.”

“I was astonished by how the technology has brought us to a new age.”

“Ok that was hilarious.”

So, people are there (on Google+), having fun, and trying new things. Time to get creative and innovative. Enjoy.