The fundamental purpose of
Google Hangouts is to give anyone the ability to video conference from their house or work computer, laptop, or smartphone without buying any specialized equipment. Hangouts allows up to 10 people to participate in a single group chat session, making it easy for a far-flung family or work team to chat face-to-face and voice-to-voice in real time.
Hangouts video conferencing feature is hardly novel or mind-blowing;
Skype, a video conferencing service with more than 30 million users, was released eight years before Hangouts was and supports up to 25 people in a single conference call. However, the way in which Hangouts video conferencing combines with its other features is causing many Skype proponents to switch. Read on to locate out what these features are.
The video conferencing needs of business people, students, and other collaboration-intensive fields often includes the sharing of documents. This need can easily be fulfilled with the Hangouts feature, as it seamlessly incorporates the applications found on the increasingly well-liked Google Drive. Hangouts allows users to open, view, and edit a document, spreadsheet, or presentation in real time, all while keeping the basic video chat function running.
Stream Webinars Live on YouTube
A recently introduced feature called Hangouts On-Air gives any user over the age of 18 the ability to broadcast their Hangout live. Simply pressing the ON AIR button after a Hangout has been started will permit people in your Google + circles and any of YouTubes 800 million unique monthly users to watch it. These live videos can also be embedded on websites.
The ease with which you can communicate to the world via the On-Air feature makes it an acceptable substitute for
GoToMeeting and other webinar applications. Organizations that desire to communicate to more than 1,000 people at a time, the viewer hat that GoToMeeting has in place, should strongly consider switching to Google Hangouts.
Easy Posting to YouTube
Hangouts can be uploaded to YouTube with ease as soon as users are finished recording them. Important webinars or meetings conducted through Hangouts can thus be shared with potential clients and unavailable co-workers on the worlds most popular video hosting platform, making these videos easy to access for later reference.
Why Google Hangouts are Ideal for
Businesses
Hangouts are useful for more than just entertainment and socializing; they have many practical business applications as well.
No Installation Required
Most video conferencing and webinar programs, like Skype and GoToMeeting, require users to have them installed on their computers before the programs can be used. This can be be prohibitive, as even the little time and effort investments installing such programs requires may dissuade potential video conferencing attendees from showing up.
Google Hangouts removes the installation prerequisite problem by only requiring a Google account and internet access. This means it takes only a couple of minutes for the more than 425 million Gmail users to log in to their account and go to their
Google Plus profile (even if it has not been set up) in order to join a Hangout.
Simple, Free Collaboration
Google Hangouts allows co-workers located anywhere in the world to video talk, share images and
YouTube videos, and view and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time. Best of all, all task mentioned above can be accomplished in a single tab upon a single browser. No other suite of applications makes collaboration this easy.
Gone are the days of lengthy email threads, awkward conference calls, and the opening, saving, and sending of an endless stream of
Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Hangouts allows workers to be more productive with less hassle all at no cost.
Expansive Reach
Hangouts make it easy for businesses to connect with people and organizations that they have no preexisting relationship with. Skype and other video conferencing applications rely upon users being connected before their conference begins, but it is not required for YouTube users to have even heard of your business before they stumble across and attend your Hangout. Daria Musk, the aforementioned aspiring musician turned star, can corroborate the fact that a Hangout On-Air can attract thousands of new viewers as it is being broadcasted.
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