I have been trying Google Hangouts sporadically for the last … 6 months or so. Using it once a month to handle a group chat or video chat instead of my regular Skype, phone, or webex usage. It improved tremedously each month, but since in the first few months it wouldnt evenload correctlt thta wasnt saying much. By the time it finally started loading correctly for me it was dropping calls left and right and very choppy in the UI.
All that being said, it was a great day in the video conference world today: our team at Socialize used Hangouts for a group call and it worked flawlessly! Hooray, finally a group video chat system that actually works. Of course I am holding back a little bit since most video chat services are hit or miss, but I must admit that the steady growth of improvement on Google Hangouts is nice, and if it keeps up this trajectory it will be the goto for me and my team.
Some cool features that come with GHang:
1 – You can schedule a hangout on your calendar
2 – You can video chat with multiple poeple for free
3 – It comes with the standard “effects” sweet people know and love. We had a good time using the “applause” effect for each persons update, and the “gong” effect when the meeting was over.
4 – You can screen share to the group pretty easily
5 – You can pull in your Google Drive data into the chat. Which is nice for us since we use GDrive a lot. I haven’t tried it yet, but presentations in GDrive should integrate well…
Give Google Hangouts a shot, and let me know if it worked smoothly for you too, or if my glee is premature.
Sean Shadmand 
Great post Sean. I agree, it’s come along away. One thing I did directly afterwards was setup a persistent URL for our hangout by setting up an g+ event a year in advance. It creates a persistent hangout URL for the entire year so we can always checkin to the same URL for every standup.
Dude we totally have to try using this more for our business! I’ll have to let my family know, too, as we tried a three-way video on skype and it failed miserably (even though I had a premium account).
Thanks guys.
@twitter-1397291:disqus Yeah it is sweet as a free group video chat alternative to premium Skype. (Way to blow it again MS ;P )
Nice idea @isaac:disqus Having the vanity URL or bitly you set up makes it super easy to “jump on a call” i.e. http://www.yoururl.com/groupcall
Extra cool bonus points: You can add phone numbers through the interface using Google Voice so those without internet access can join the call! I will update the post.
Just realized you can also add people through Google Voice. Updating post…
Gotta hand it to Google… they keep cranking out good stuff. I like Google Hangouts, but I need more security for my meetings, so I use RHUB’s on-premise appliance, and it’s Fort Knox.