4 ms·

Isn't the elephant in the room competing services : facetime, or facebook messenger, or whatever the google product is?

by dzdt 10y ago

mrweasel 10y ago
Which are all terrible in a business setting. Facebook is block at my employer, because most people doesn't seem to understand that they shouldn't be on Facebook during work hours. Also many companies doesn't exactly like it when you use a private account for business related communication. Google Hangout is just horrible, and not only because I'm require to have an Google account (and I'm NOT using person accounts for work related communication). Whenever I get an invitation for a Hangout "call", I ask that they call the phone on my desk. Skype works because people are just asked to create a Skype account using their work email. It's not perfect, but at least when someone leaves you can reset their Skype password and get the reset-password email.
- daenney 10y ago
  You can create a Google account just fine with your work email too. If Skype works for you that way there's no reason why using Hangouts has to be any different. Here's where you can sign up: https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?hl=en https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?hl=en Click on the "I prefer to use my current email address" and you're good to go. You don't have to use that account for anything else and the same thing about someone leaving the company holds true.
- danmaz74 10y ago
  For me, google hangouts works much better than skype, especially with screensharing and group calls. Still far from perfect, though.
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  > Facebook is block at my employer, because most people doesn't seem to understand that they shouldn't be on Facebook during work hours. Why is that? People's personal life doesn't disappear when they arrive to the office. I've seen employers blocking services and getting a spike in productivity... for the next day - then people find something else to do when they need to get distracted, rest their mind, socialize, etc Also, it's terrible to apply technical solutions to education issues. If your employees are spending way too much time on Facebook, first you need to have a conversation with each of the offenders, second you might want to look deeper into the issue as you might not be feeding them enough work to do. Your processes might be broken, so your supply chain and productivity would be impacted by design, not purely as a consequence of people slacking off :-)
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > People's personal life doesn't disappear when they arrive to the office. It does. Just like work life disappears the moment you leave the office. Work is work, personal is personal, any kind of mixing always ends up with horrible results. In many countries, the inverse - doing job related things at home or in general outside of paid time - is even highly illegal.
- rconti 10y ago
  Hangouts is the most godawful piece of software ever. It's yet another piece of GoogleAbandonware. They tried to force everyone into New Hangouts at least once, I'm not sure what came of that, or if I'm using it now, or what. The biggest offense is their inability to offer a proper windowed experience; instead it relies on a browser-as-a-window-manager nightmare. You can't use your OS's window manager to deal with it in a rational/sane way, the rules of how and why you might get a sound notification for a message are impenetrable. I can't mute a conversation on the computer but leave audio notifications on my phone. I can't login/logout on my phone without a number of slow actions (I really wish I could schedule my availability), it's just.. ugh.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I've long thought the idea of Hangouts was good, and on the few times I've attempted to use it (1:1 calls mostly), it's been acceptable. I'd like to be able to fully disable video. Not sure that's an option, but for bandwidth-limited situations, it should help. The account requirement, though, is the absolute killer. It seems to have arisen from Google's desperate effort to push world+dog to G+, despite exceptionally strong reluctance and/or resistance to do so. If instead they'd followed the WebRTC mode described above (first I've heard of that -- someone's failing to market), with the call coordinator / originator needing an ID, but no other party, then it might actually have taken off. I've found the implementation, integration with other tools (it's where I don't want it, it's not where I do, it keeps activating when I don't want it, for a long time it was impossible to log off, etc., etc), name, and pretty much everything else to be pants. The idea, however, is capital. Sad, really.
- morgante 10y ago
  You might want to check out http://appear.in http://appear.in. There are no signups required, and I've found it to be more reliable than any other service I've used.
thecatspaw 10y ago
I consider it unprofessional to rely on facebook at work. I guess facetime could work, but that is, as far as I know, apple only.

Isn't the elephant in the room competing services : facetime, or facebook messenger, or whatever the google product is?

by dzdt 10y ago

Isn't the elephant in the room competing services : facetime, or facebook messenger, or whatever the google product is?

Which are all terrible in a business setting. Facebook is block at my employer, because most people doesn't seem to understand that they shouldn't be on Facebook during work hours. Also many companies doesn't exactly like it when you use a private account for business related communication. Google Hangout is just horrible, and not only because I'm require to have an Google account (and I'm NOT using person accounts for work related communication). Whenever I get an invitation for a Hangout "call", I ask that they call the phone on my desk. Skype works because people are just asked to create a Skype account using their work email. It's not perfect, but at least when someone leaves you can reset their Skype password and get the reset-password email.

daenney 10y ago
You can create a Google account just fine with your work email too. If Skype works for you that way there's no reason why using Hangouts has to be any different. Here's where you can sign up: https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?hl=en https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?hl=en Click on the "I prefer to use my current email address" and you're good to go. You don't have to use that account for anything else and the same thing about someone leaving the company holds true.
danmaz74 10y ago
For me, google hangouts works much better than skype, especially with screensharing and group calls. Still far from perfect, though.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
> Facebook is block at my employer, because most people doesn't seem to understand that they shouldn't be on Facebook during work hours. Why is that? People's personal life doesn't disappear when they arrive to the office. I've seen employers blocking services and getting a spike in productivity... for the next day - then people find something else to do when they need to get distracted, rest their mind, socialize, etc Also, it's terrible to apply technical solutions to education issues. If your employees are spending way too much time on Facebook, first you need to have a conversation with each of the offenders, second you might want to look deeper into the issue as you might not be feeding them enough work to do. Your processes might be broken, so your supply chain and productivity would be impacted by design, not purely as a consequence of people slacking off :-)
- kuschku 10y ago
  > People's personal life doesn't disappear when they arrive to the office. It does. Just like work life disappears the moment you leave the office. Work is work, personal is personal, any kind of mixing always ends up with horrible results. In many countries, the inverse - doing job related things at home or in general outside of paid time - is even highly illegal.
rconti 10y ago
Hangouts is the most godawful piece of software ever. It's yet another piece of GoogleAbandonware. They tried to force everyone into New Hangouts at least once, I'm not sure what came of that, or if I'm using it now, or what. The biggest offense is their inability to offer a proper windowed experience; instead it relies on a browser-as-a-window-manager nightmare. You can't use your OS's window manager to deal with it in a rational/sane way, the rules of how and why you might get a sound notification for a message are impenetrable. I can't mute a conversation on the computer but leave audio notifications on my phone. I can't login/logout on my phone without a number of slow actions (I really wish I could schedule my availability), it's just.. ugh.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I've long thought the idea of Hangouts was good, and on the few times I've attempted to use it (1:1 calls mostly), it's been acceptable. I'd like to be able to fully disable video. Not sure that's an option, but for bandwidth-limited situations, it should help. The account requirement, though, is the absolute killer. It seems to have arisen from Google's desperate effort to push world+dog to G+, despite exceptionally strong reluctance and/or resistance to do so. If instead they'd followed the WebRTC mode described above (first I've heard of that -- someone's failing to market), with the call coordinator / originator needing an ID, but no other party, then it might actually have taken off. I've found the implementation, integration with other tools (it's where I don't want it, it's not where I do, it keeps activating when I don't want it, for a long time it was impossible to log off, etc., etc), name, and pretty much everything else to be pants. The idea, however, is capital. Sad, really.
morgante 10y ago
You might want to check out http://appear.in http://appear.in. There are no signups required, and I've found it to be more reliable than any other service I've used.

thecatspaw 10y ago

I consider it unprofessional to rely on facebook at work. I guess facetime could work, but that is, as far as I know, apple only.