Skip to main content

Discovered: Killer App for Google Hangouts

Video conferencing... cool... and hangouts are really underutilized for this but i think my team and I have discovered a killer app for Hangouts...

Ever since I saw the movie "Inside Man" there was a scene in which the character played by Jodie Foster interacts with her secretary by full time full screen video even though she is only in the next room... Jodie can talk face to face with her secretary whenever she wants because the secretaries video chat auto answers and shows on her desktop without having to answer the call...

I've tried to emulate this with Skype by having an account that is only known to close friends, workmates and family and setting Skype to auto answering whenever they call in... this way they can see when I'm on the phone or just say hello whenever they want...

Now with hangouts all I need to do is run a webcam on one of my servers as a constant Video hangout and then allow my family and work mates to drop in and out whenever they want... it works like this..

Hangout starts on Rics server - Ric shares hangout with circle that includes close family and coworkers
Camera shows R2Labs logo
Ric joins hangout - since I share the hangout with myself
Video of me working at my desk is shared with hangout
My mum joins hangout - sees me working.. says hello
My Brother in the US joins hangout see me and my Mum

But the hangout never ends because the initiating machine is my server...
Pretty cool eh.
Real Time Web Analytics