System and method of enabling a non-host, participant-initiated breakout session in a videoconferencing system, and displaying breakout session participants in a participant-initiated breakout session view

A method for displaying a session view of a host-initiated videoconferencing session and a non-host participant-initiated breakout session view in online meeting user interfaces, the session view displaying a video feed of the videoconferencing session to meeting participants of the videoconferencing session on their respective participant computers, wherein breakout session participants are a subset of the meeting participants, the method comprising:

• (a) receiving, by a videoconferencing system, video feeds of each of the meeting participants, the video feeds being camera-captured views of each of the meeting participants;
• (b) generating, by the videoconferencing system, instructions for a session view of the host-initiated videoconferencing session in the online meeting user interface for viewing by the meeting participants;
• (c) creating, by the videoconferencing system, a non-host participant-initiated breakout session upon initiation by one of the meeting participants who is not a session host, the non-host participant-initiated breakout session including the meeting participant who initiated the non-host participant-initiated breakout session and any meeting participants who accepted an invitation to join the non-host participant-initiated breakout session,
• wherein the meeting participant who initiated the non-host participant-initiated breakout session and any meeting participants who accepted the invitation to join the non-host participant-initiated breakout session are the breakout session participants;
• (d) generating, by the videoconferencing system, instructions for a non-host participant-initiated breakout session view in the online meeting user interface for the breakout session participants using the video feeds of the respective breakout session participants;
• and
• (e) transmitting, by the videoconferencing system, via an electronic network in communication with the videoconferencing system, instructions to the respective meeting participant computers, the instructions being instructions to:
• (i) display only the session view of the host-initiated videoconferencing session to each of the meeting participants who are not breakout session participants, and
• (ii) display the non-host participant-initiated breakout session view to each of the meeting participants who are breakout session participants,
• wherein the breakout session participants are allowed to interact with each other within the non-host participant-initiated breakout session, and
• wherein the non-host participant-initiated breakout session view is a gallery view that includes the breakout session participants, and
• wherein the session view of the host-initiated videoconferencing session is a gallery view that includes a plurality of the meeting participants.