

Show HN: Host scalable virtual conferences on Google Hangouts - saidur
https://www.crowdcast.io/

======
saidur
I was frustrated with how much of a pain it is to organize coding conferences
online. The webinar software out there simply sucks for the host and the
attendee. I figured out a way to seamlessly use Google Hangouts to organize
large-scale highly interactive virtual conferences, and I call it Crowdcast.

Here are some coding conferences that have used it so far: Hacksummit (30k
attendees,
[http://ccst.io/e/hacksummit-2014](http://ccst.io/e/hacksummit-2014)), Genesis
Camp ([http://ccst.io/e/genesiscamp1](http://ccst.io/e/genesiscamp1)),
ANZCoders ([http://ccst.io/e/anzcoders2015](http://ccst.io/e/anzcoders2015)),
Wordsesh ([http://ccst.io/e/wordsesh](http://ccst.io/e/wordsesh))

You can set up multiple sessions with different panels and talks across
multiple days. The architecture is built to scale. It's a client-side angular
app primarily talking to Firebase. With this model I've been able to hold the
world's largest virtual conference
([http://hacksummit.org](http://hacksummit.org)). We had everyone from DHH
(creator of rails) to Hakon Le (inventor of css) speak.

To take it one-step further I added analytics around your event and Crowdcast
keeps track of when you answer your audience's questions so that they can jump
straight to the video answers once the event is over. Finally, your event is
automatically recorded and instantly shareable.

Would love to see how the HN community uses this to organize their own
conferences

~~~
gingerlime
We were trying to build webinars on our platform, and used hangouts on air
once, but it somehow felt odd to use and we weren't entirely sure what goes on
(for example, one of the speakers disappeared and we couldn't see him, only
this generic avatar).

Would crowdcast solve these problems by providing a better interface for the
presenter(s)? or is it still relying on the existing hangouts interface?

~~~
saidur
Yeah the hangout interface is pretty bad. We've been able to get our viewers
to completely avoid the hangout interface and use Crowdcast for all
interactions. Right now only the speakers have to deal with the hangout
interface. The host invites them directly to the hangout.

Although it works fine 90% of the time, we were able to run the largest
virtual conf in history, every once in a while hangouts does still do strange
things. Luckily for that reason we made Crowdcast decoupled from the video
service, you can use it with Livestream, Ustream, or anything with an embed
code.

~~~
gingerlime
Thanks! We might give it a try then for one of the next webinars. It looks
promising.

------
egusa
i remember first seeing crowdcast present at the launch festival, it's great
to see how much they've progressed. The design looks fantastic.

~~~
saidur
Thanks egusa, its been a lot of work :)

