Republican (GOP) presidential front runner Mitt Romney took part in a Google+ hangout today and answered participant questions.

Fox News as part of their Special Report is planning to do a round of Google+ hangouts with various political leaders and presidential candidates of the 2012 US presidential election. As part of the series of hangouts, today was the first one with GOP front runner Mitt Romney. (Don’t worry if you have missed it, below you’ll find a recorded video of the same)

This is a virtual town hall style meeting powered by Google+ hangouts. In the last election, then candidate and current President Obama used social networks like twitter, facebook and linkedin extensively. During that time Google+ or any feature similar to Google+ hangouts didn’t exist in the social world.

But this election it’s all about to change with the arrival of Google+ hangouts (looks like it arrived on time for the upcoming election). Google+ hangouts is going to be a huge bonus and powerful tool for candidates to reach out to people and interact with them in real time.

This will help candidates to cut short their trips across the US and instead host live hangouts from the convenience of wherever they are and the same goes for people who couldn’t make it to town hall style meetings before(and participate from the convenience of their desktops)

Recorded video of Mitt Romney’s google+ hangout (around 16 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5urmQonYqo

Is this the beginning of a new era of virtual town hall style meetings? Are we going to see other candidates including President Obama soon on Google+ hangouts? Well one way or the other we all will know in coming days and weeks, stay tuned!!

But one thing is for sure, Google+ hangouts is going to play a significant role in the upcoming US presidential election 2012 and we’re excited to experience it!!!