Google + Hangouts

Google + Hangouts has fascinated me.

I literally didn’t know about its existence up until last Digital Literacy class when our teacher Enrique Dans showed us the light.

Why didn’t I know of such a good and useful tool before? Because I stayed in my comfortable bubble, that of comfy Skype, comfy Facebook and even more comfy Facetime. It’s true! Whenever something works for us we tend to stay in our place, not letting others change our habits or open our minds to new things that, like the case right here, could make our lives better and easier.

Compared with Skype and other live video conference’s tools online, Google + Hangouts is so far the best I have tried.

It first hit me because you didn’t have to pay to make a 10-people conference for free (something that just can’t happen in Skype or Facebook chat). Secondly because it amazed me how a good working tool it can be while having group meetings or projects. This application allows every member of the group to share a document or presentation to work on online while doing the conference. Talking from my previous experiences as a student, I tended to upload team work separately to Facebook so one of the team members could gather all the information and assemble it together.

But guys! This is awesome! Hangouts permits you to work all together in the same document and the same time. Saving time to that poor team victim who has to organize the whole thing at the end. What I also noticed was the quality of conferences. Unlike many Internet surfers may think, conferences actually have a good video and voice quality. Skype now a days is not working as good as many people have expected. And let’s not mention Facebook chat: not worth it.

So in case you haven’t noticed my all new enthusiasm with Google + Hangouts, get it!

M., Digital Literacy