By this time pretty much everyone using Google+ knows what a google+ hangout is and may have either started an own hangout or participated in someone’s hangout.

Everyone loves the google+ hangout feature and it is one of the most used feature in the new social network. But one of the complaints we often have or come across is its limitation of allowing only a max of 9 (nine) participants. The faster you know about the hangout and on time to get in, you’ll be able to join the hangout else you’ll be greeted with the infamous message of this hangout is full, try at a later time or start one yourselves. You’ll able to join only if someone leaves the hangout. We realized this going to be a problem and wrote a post 4 weeks ago about google+ hangouts needs a spectators option under the missing or nice to have features section. This will not only help avoid disappointment but also help people who wants to be just listen and be a spectator.

Good news, now our wish or request has ben granted. Yep, Google+ hangouts now supports spectators and it’s called Google+ Hangouts on Air. The way this works is, you can start an hangout and a maximum of 9 people will be able join as usual and participate in the hangout. Once the maximum 9 users limit is reached it won’t block new users anymore, Instead it’ll consider all the participants above the max 9 limit as spectators and they’ll be able to watch the hangout. Cool huh!

This will take Google+ hangouts to a whole new level, now you’ll be able to talk to a larger audience, larger group of people and it’s going to be big. Soon you’ll be hearing like we mentioned earlier There is a google+ hangout for that.

This feature is going to turned on with a limited set of broadcasters and progressively added to all google+ users. The last time we checked, it’s not yet enabled for our Google+ account. Looking forward for it soon.

Yesterday we wrote a post about Blacked eyed peas hangout on Google+. In fact that was the launch and test of the first public Google+ hangout with Hangout on Air feature. Around 74 participants were able to join that hangout and watched the backstage just before the onstage live concert for NYC.

Once this feature is enabled for all of us, no more disappointment that you couldn’t make it to a hangout but be on time 🙂 just not to miss anything. Thanks to Google+ team for implementing this great feature.