Mini Technology Blog – Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is a free communications software package similar to Microsoft’s Skype. It is available as an app downloadable from the Google Play store for Android devices and can be accessed by going to your Google search engine page and click the small matrix of nine dots in the top right-hand corner then click on Hangouts. You will need a Gmail account and this can be set up by clicking on Gmail in the same menu.
If Google Chrome is your preferred web browser Hangouts is available as a browser extension – just click on the small green icon top right on your task bar.
Hangouts offers video, audio and text call facilities.
Starting this week, Google will begin rolling out free access to their advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally including:
- Larger meetings, for up to 250 participants per call
- Live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain
- The ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive
- These features are typically available in the Enterprise edition of G Suite and in
G Suite Enterprise for Education, and will be available at no additional cost to all
customers until 1st July 2020.
If you need help getting started, please visit Google’s learning centre page.
Also check out – https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/helping-businesses-and-schools-stay-connected-in-response-to-coronavirus
Pros
- Up to 250 participants
- Unlimited call length
- Ability to record meetings & save them
- It works on Smart Phones
Cons
- Need to have a g-mail email account to set up an account to use Google Hangouts.
Give it a try
