Google Hangouts, a feature of Google+, Google’s new social network, lets people video-chat, watch YouTube clips together and even take turns belting out rounds of karaoke.
As it turns out, the service can also be a good way to host a cooking show.
Lee Allison, a technology consultant in New York, runs the Google+ Cooking School, hour-long cooking classes conducted over video-chat. Mr. Allison got the idea to create a casual culinary school after he began playing around with Hangouts and realized he could use it for one of his personal passions, food.
“A good friend of mine and I are foodies and we’ve been showing people how to cook for years now,” he said. “The opportunity to do it face-to-face using technology was a light bulb kind of moment.”
The developer who previously brought us the Facebook Friend Exporter, Mohamed Mansour, has created a new, experimental Google Chrome extension which adds text-based document collaboration capabilities to Google+ Hangouts.
For those of you not yet versed in all the G+ terminology, Hangouts are the multi-person video chat feature in Google’s social networking service, supporting up to 10 people at a time.
With this new Hangout extension, now you can do more than simply chat – you can collaborate on text-based files, too. Mansour suggests this would be a great extension for developers to use for code collaboration, for example.
I remember talking about the potential benefit of such a potential videoconferencing app, over 6 years ago, on a Skype call with Stuart Henshall (http://www.henshall.com/).
I am glad to see I was not alone in that vision, and that the time has now come for such application to be potentially of use and support to many.
The OpenTok concept is thus an inversion of the usual video chat paradigm, where the video stream itself is front-and-center and users have nothing to focus on but each other.
“Content fuels conversation,” says Small. “The ‘aha’ moment for us came when we noticed that people who watch YouTube movies together hang out for an hour or more. They’re half talking, half watching, half chilling. So we said, ‘Why are we spending time trying to figure out how to fit the Web inside our service, instead of taking our service and fitting it to the Web.’”
The easiest way to brainstorm visually and document your thoughts and strategies.
Your free whiteboard online in the cloud can be accessed immediately with no need to register: just invite people via email or IM and start collaborating.
Thanks to a partnership announced Tuesday with Citrix Online, Skype users will get web conferencing functionality later this year.
By making use of Citrix’s popular GoToMeeting conferencing product, Skype users will be able to easily quickly set up online meetings with an audio conferencing bridge that enables users to join via Skype or through public switched telephone network (PSTN) phone numbers.
Web conferences will make use of Skype’s SILK codec for high-quality audio, and will also enable annotated screensharing.
Intuit on Tuesday announced that it will bring its online collaboration tool, Brainstorm, to market.
The Web-based platform, which was initially developed for use within the company, is intended to facilitate creativity and innovation by allowing employees to share, experiment and collaborate on new ideas via an online crowdsourcing platform.
It’s the latest entry in a crowded (no pun intended) field of tools aiming to make it easier for employees to, ironically, work together.
The question for each one of them: is it stupid-simple? It must be, because the numbers say so. Some figures from Intuit:
New free webconferencing tool, makes it extra-easy to upload files and to share them with others while being able to see individual participants' live mouse cursor.
MiceMeeting integrates also zooming, Skype integration, embedding, and full social network integration and full support for mobile devices.
8x8 Virtual Room is designed to appeal to small and medium-sized businesses looking for video conferencing services. At $199 a month, it provides unlimited multi-user chat sessions with up to 20 participants at a time.
Its simple and universal structure can adapt to any workflow and can be used as a collaboration platform, intranet/extranet, document system, or FTP replacement.
Google has added support for ZIP and RAR files to the Google Docs Viewer. That means if you get a one of these files as an attachment in Gmail, you’ll be able to view its contents within the browser when you click “view”.
“ZIP and RAR archives that are embedded inside other archives also work,” says Avner Aviad on the Google Docs Viewer team. “For example, if you have a RAR file inside a ZIP file (like in our example above) you can just click on that file to access the embedded archive.”
“We hope this removes the need to download full archives when you only need to work on select items,” Aviad adds.
Thanks for getting back in touch. At Internet Billboards we have a real estate vertical, if you like I can discuss having your real estate curation selections post there very easy and no extra effort, you can use Scoop.it to do it.
Hi Stefanie, Sent you a Twitter DM, but not certain if you got it. We are also friends on Facebook. I will send you a message on Facebook with the details. Thanks.
Facebook Messenger arrived yesterday, bringing a cross-platform group messaging solution that leverages your Facebook network and SMS to reach a wide potential audience. I compared it at a high level to other messaging solutions, but let’s take a closer look at Facebook’s offering and what it can do.
Facebook Messenger requires only that you have an active Facebook account to play. That should make things easy for about 750 million of you.
If you’re among the rare few smartphone owners who aren’t yet on Facebook, you can also sign up for an account right from the Messenger app, thanks to a link that shoots you to the mobile sign-up page in your device’s browser.
Skype just dropped an update for its Mac client. Version 5.3 includes support for HD video, so long as your Mac is equipped with one of the new FaceTime HD cameras introduced in MacBook Pros earlier this year, or a third-party USB camera that supports HD resolution.
Along with the usual bug fixes, the update also brings full Lion compatibility.
A great vision and insight into what Google+ is really all about. If you think it is all about creating a social network and beating Facebook and Twitter on their own turf, you may have to think that one again.
1890 pages! Hardcover 3-set collection of concepts, methodologies and tools about online collaboration.
Over the past few decades, the significantly evolving area of e-collaboration has incorporated and adapted numerous electronic technology devices to become a global phenomenon, virtually connecting persons and organizations from around the world instantaneously.
E-Collaboration: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications addresses a range of e-collaboration topics through advanced research chapters authored by an international partnership of field experts. Through coverage of the latest findings, concepts, and technological advancements, this compendium of knowledge on e-collaboration expands the subject field and provides academicians, practitioners, and researchers with a defining reference collection on cutting-edge discoveries.
With OneDrum you can share and collaborate with your work mates by seeing in real-time what they type and where they type it. You can edit and correct the same documents without needing to create each time additional files.
Imagine having the ability in the palm of your hand to instantly communicate with almost anyone anywhere in the world.
In an ever-changing world of communication technologies and smartphone advances, TransFire offers a simple, easy to use application to write or even teach yourself to speak almost any language.
TransFire offers fast & accurate Translation, Phonetic Transliteration, Text to Speech, Translated Chat, & Social Networking features. Instantly translate & send messages to and from over 50 languages.
Citrix GoToMeeting, a web conferencing solution that we’ve written about previously, has unveiled the ability to create high-definition video conferences. The new service, which is dubbed HDFaces and was announced last October, allows users to create video conferences with up to six attendees at no additional cost.
The new feature is built into the latest version of the GoToMeeting software, and doesn’t require any fancy equipment — any webcam and microphone will do, although headsets will most likely be needed to keep room noise down, or users can choose to dial into an audio bridge. Each stream can be displayed at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, for a total maximum resolution of 1920 x 960 pixels.
GoFileDrop (previously called GoDropBox) is an app that adds a public mailbox to your Google Docs account, enabling anyone with the appropriate link to upload files to your account.
It was previously only available to Google Apps customers via the Google Apps marketplace, but it can now be installed by users with regular Gmail accounts.
Skype has finally released their native application for the Apple iPad. The application brings everything you love from the iPhone version to the iPad’s larger display. This includes instant messaging, audio chatting, and video conferencing. Just like the iPhone version, everything works over both WiFi and 3G cellular data networks.
• Join Skype on your iPad in a few moments or just sign straight in to your account.
• If you already have a Skype account, your Skype contacts will automatically be there on your iPad.
• We’ve made adding new Skype contacts really easy.
• Once they’re in your Contact list, call, video or instant message them in one touch.
• Flick through recent calls and instant messages in your Skype for iPad history.
• Skype for iPad works over Wi-Fi or 3G (operator data charges may apply). Call Skype contacts on their iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac and even Skype enabled TVs.
Users won’t find the new version as a free update to the iPhone and iPod touch download, but instead will find a brand new application called ‘Skype for iPad’ on the iTunes App Store. This application is, of course, free. The app seems to be available worldwide as of right now.
If you’re like me, your to-do list has taken on a life of its own, and after several failed attempts at taming it, you’re now simply looking for a way to peacefully co-exist.
Fortunately, new apps and devices are being created almost daily to help us improve our productivity and collaboration.
Unlike Ustream or GoToMeeting, Vokle’s value proposition is that the broadcaster can take live text and video questions from the audience, so that those watching have an opportunity to actually shape the direction and arc of the content. Vokle announced that its users will now have access to video recordings of every event created on the platform (going forward). Ten to twenty minutes after each event has concluded, the video recording will automatically be updated to appear to users’ event and series pages on Vokle, or to the location of a user’s embedded video.
An alternative to the Google Hangouts feature on Google Plus was introduced in the form of Social Hangouts on Facebook, a new app that enables video chatting with up to 20 friends without leaving the social network’s platform.
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