Google Hangout - tool for virtual discussion.

For the past two semesters, there are so many group assignments need to be done. All my group members including me stay far from each others. So, if we want to have a discussion, we need to meet in the middle area and usually we have a meeting in Shah Alam. Sometimes, we meet three to four times a week in order to complete the urgent assignments. This is really hard for all of us to meet like this again for every semester since all of us are working and have commitment to family.

Due to that, we discuss with each others on how to have a discussion without need to meet in a place. One of the idea is to have a video conference. All of us are using social network like Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, Whats App and Skype but all of this social network not have a video conference for many peoples in the same time.Then, one of our group members propose to use Google Hangouts.

Google Hangouts is an instant messaging and video chat platform developed by Google, which launched on May 15, 2013 during the keynote of its I/O development conference. Hangouts allows users to hold conversations between two or more users. The service can be accessed online through the Gmail or Google+ websites, or through mobile apps available for Android and iOS (which were distributed as a successor to their existing Google Talk apps). 

[source: Google Voice Mail Official Blog (July 9, 2013). "Making calls from Hangouts — in Gmail and across the web". Google. Retrieved October 21, 2013]

 

Chat histories are saved online, allowing them to be synced between devices. A "watermark" of a user's avatar is used as a marker to indicate how far they have read into the conversation. Photos can be shared during conversations, which are automatically uploaded into a private Google+ album. 

[source: "Google beefs up Hangouts into text, photo, video chat powerhouse". =Ars Technica. Retrieved May 16, 2013]

I share to you the video on how Google Hangouts can benefits to us.

Now, we are on experiment to use this apps in this semester. So far, there is advantages and also disadvantages using Google Hangouts. But, one thing for sure, it save our money and time. Looking forward for the improvement on next semester...