Google Meet has launched live sharing to enable meeting participants to co-watch content in real-time.
Together, participants will be able to watch YouTube videos, listen to Spotify and create playlists, or play games such as Heads Up! and Uno! Mobile.
Live sharing was made available on Duo earlier in the year and, following the merger between Duo and Meet, the feature has now been released on Google Meet as well.
Dave Citron, Director of Product Management at Google Duo & Google Meet, said: “As we announced in June, we’re upgrading the Google Duo experience to include all Google Meet features and bringing our two video calling services together into a single solution.
“This upgrade, which started rolling out last month, 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.
“We’re also launching live sharing for Google Meet. Live sharing allows all meeting participants to interact with the content that’s being shared.”
The new Live sharing feature will be located in a new Activities tab via the three-dot menu, which is also home to Q7A and polls.
Users will then be confronted with various icons, such as Spotify and YouTube, which will redirect them to the application selected as part of a group session.
According to the Google Duo blog, it has been rolling out various upgrades over the last few weeks.
Some users will already be seeing the Duo app name and icon change to Google Meet. Google Meet, on the other hand, will have a green icon and be renamed to “Google Meet (original)”.
The updates will be continuing through the month on both mobile and tablet devices, although the updates are expected to arrive later for other devices.
Other features which have been shared to Meet from Duo include allowing users to initiate instant video calls with colleagues or other groups at a scheduled time.
Users will also be able to change their backgrounds or use visual effects before joining meetings. Whilst in meetings, users can also leverage in-meeting chat and captions.
Google is recommending that users keep their apps updated to the latest version to ensure they can use the new features as soon as possible.
Updating an Android app can be done by opening the Google Play Store, tapping the profile icon at the top right and then selecting ‘Manage apps and devices’. Apps with updates available will have the label ‘Update available’, which can be tapped to begin running the app update.
YouTube live streaming was enabled on Google Meet last month, but it was not possible for participants to watch it together until now.
Google Meet has also recently gained client-side encryption to increase the control its customers have over their data.
