Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Having Fun With Mondays With Myrt

I have enjoyed the weekly Mondays With Myrt Hangouts On Air for about two years now, and look forward to many more years of it.  Pat Richley-Erickson (DearMYRTLE) is an excellent hostess and keeps the discussion moving for 90 minutes every week, while Russ Worthington (CousinRuss) keeps the technology rolling and contributes reader comments and his own commentary along with the rest of the panel.  For Mondays with Myrt, there are usually 8 to 10 panelists, including Pat and Russ.

These Hangouts On Air are no longer shown live on Google+ on the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Community group.  Pat and Russ are now using Business Hangouts for Mondays With Myrt, Wacky Wednesday, Genealogy Game Show and other hangouts.  The neat thing about the Business Hangouts is that the chat log is shown beside the video, and is archived with the video.

However, you have to register to view the Hangouts with either Google, Facebook, Linked In or Twitter. even if you want to VIEW the archived hangout.  The registration has to be done for each Hangout you wish to VIEW or participate in.  If you want to JOIN the panel, then you have to register with a Google account.

DearMYRTLE has created a streamlined process on her DearMYRTLE Hangouts page (http:hangouts.dearmyrtle.com).


By clicking on the "Hangouts" tab on the menu bar, you can register for upcoming or archived Hangouts.

The video Archives for all of Pat's hangouts on on the "Archives" tab next to the "Hangouts" tab.  On the screen above, I rolled my mouse over the "Archives" tab and then over the "Mondays With Myrt" to see all of the episodes to date in 2016.  I clicked on the last one, for 22 February 2016:



The screen above says "This live event is over.  Sign in and watch the replay now."  I clicked on the "Google" button and was able to watch the replay of the 22 February episode:


Note that over on the right side of the screen is the chat log that has comments from throughout the 90 minute show.  The chat log is keyed to the video by the time stamps, although people do make comments about earlier topics.  Comments can be made at any time during or after the live event by clicking on the red plus sign, typing the comment, and clicking Enter.

After the Hangout is over, YouTube renders the video and makes it public when the owner (Pat) tells them to do so.  Pat tries to get the YouTube video online within 24 hours of the live event.

You can watch all of Pat's videos on her YouTube Channel -- https://www.youtube.com/user/DearMYRTLE.

Here is the 22 February Mondays With Myrt video:




I usually have something useful to add to the discussion - often it's about late breaking news, or an issue I discussed in a blog post during the week before.  In the video above, it was a discussion about the Ancestry Member Tree indexing not including person profiles without sources or with only a name.  That discussion starts at about 35 minutes into the Hangout.

So there are opportunities to participate on the panel for these Hangouts, to watch and comment during the live event, and to watch the Hangout after the event either in the Archives or on YouTube.
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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Hilary Gadsby said...

I will watch the archived hangout on the page with the comments if I am unable to make the live hangout. I am able to watch even if I have not registered in advance of the hangout. I just use one the log in. I find this is preferable to using YouTube as you see all the comments.

Geolover said...

That's a cogent description of how to interface with DearMyrt's current efforts.

Unfortunately those of us with slow internet interfaces are now completely shut out from even viewing the session comments.