7:00 AM
Paul B
For years I've been a pretty avid Skype user. Well, I guess I shouldn't say avid because it's not like I used it all the time, but whenever remote family members wanted some face time when I lived in California, Skype was the goto for that. Well things have changed for me recently.
I started dating a really great woman who lives in Grand Junction which is about an hour away from my home in Cedaredge Colorado (If you haven't heard of it, don't worry. Nobody has!). Well she and I have opposite parenting schedules at the moment which makes getting together a bit challenging at times. One thing we started doing to overcome that hurdle was having video chat sessions with each other.
The difference this time was that I wanted to try out Google Hangouts because it has been a long time since I've used Skype and frankly I don't remember my login information. I use my Google account all the time for blogging here at Bauer-Power as well as going on Youtube and synching my Google Chrome browsers. Also Hangouts runs in your browser and doesn't need any extra heavy software.
Here is a screen shot of me screwing around on Google Hangouts using their goofy effects feature:
My new girlfriend and I use it to chat in the evenings and see each other when we can't be together, but if you use it to talk to family it has a built in group chat feature. All you have to do is send out a link to the session and anyone with a Google account can join and you can talk to multiple people.
If you run a video podcast and post to Youtube like I used to do with Tech Chop, it also gives you the ability to live stream your conversations on Youtube and save it for later. Plus the interface is stupid intuitive so even your non-tech savvy grandma can probably figure it out.
The next time you feel like doing a video chat with someone, skip Skype and give Hangouts a try!
Do you use Hangouts? What do you use it for besides video conferencing with your friends? Let us know in the comments!
