Google announced in June that it was upgrading the Google Duo experience to include all Google Meet features and bringing the two “separate” video calling services together into a single solution.
“The upgrade,” which started to roll out in July, “gives everyone access to new features like scheduling and joining meetings, virtual backgrounds, in-meeting chat and more, in addition to your current video calling features.
Google notes, “you can start an instant video call with your entire study group or connect with your colleagues at a recurring scheduled time.” An interesting feature the company introduced to the new Meet is the ability to change your background or apply visual effects, before you join a meeting, you’ll be able. Also during the meeting, you’ll be able to use in-meeting chat and captions for more ways to participate.
A recent update is the Live sharing feature for Google Meet to enable users better engage while the meeting is on. Live sharing provides you with the ability to co-edit, co-debug, chat with your peers, share terminals, servers, look at comments and so much more. It allows all meeting participants to interact with the content that’s being shared.
As explained by Google, “So whether you’re co-watching videos on YouTube, curating a playlist on Spotify, taking turns while playing games like Heads Up!, UNO! Mobile or Kahoot! during an ice breaker, everyone will be able to join in on the action.” You can synchronize video, music, and other experiences for Google Meet participants.
As you can see in the above GIF you can “listen to music with others in real time” by inviting them to “move your call to Spotify.” The new feature will be available under a new Activities tab — which also hosts Q&A and polls options — and is accessible through the three-dot menu. From there, you can start a shared activity — in this case listen to a Spotify track together. By tapping on the Spotify icon, Meet redirects participant to the Spotify app where they can join a group session. Notably, the group session feature is only available for Spotify Premium customers, with support for two to five participants.
How to use Live share a YouTube video while on Meet
- Open Google Meet
- Then, tap the overflow menu.
- From there, select the “Activities” section.
- It should list down the available services, such as YouTube.
- Upon choosing which service to live share, it should launch a separate app.
Google said that it also started adding these new features to the Duo app over the past few weeks in light of the app’s confusing transition to Meet. The update is set to be completed on smartphones and tablets before the end of the month.
It should be noted that Meet already supports sharing your screen with call participants. However, that experience is confined within a group meeting instead of taking the call to a third-party service.
The addition of live sharing to Google Meet is reflective of Duo’s history as the fun, consumer-facing product.
Recently the company announced the merging of both video calling apps by updating the icon for Duo and renaming it Google Meet. It sounds like the rebranding will be complete by the end of this month on mobile and tablets.
Looking forward, the company says it will “continue to invest in bringing more features to Google Meet to help people to connect, collaborate and share experiences on any device, at home, at school and at work.”
