I have had a bit of a play with Hangouts to give staff access to meetings and for interviews. I’m fairly impressed. I find it more reliable than Skype.
Recently a few people have started looking at Zoom. https://www.zoom.us/
My first reaction was, why, we already have Hangouts. But I’m starting to think it might be worth looking at. Both products appear to be largely the same. Zoom can handle 25 people to Hangouts 10, but the free Zoom account is limited to 40 minutes. Hangouts are better if you are actively collaborating and want to share files, but Zoom is better for creating teaching resources as it has a built in recording function. Zoom also works on IOS and Android devices.
Appear.in is another desktop and mobile video conferencing application that is gathering some attention. It’s browser based so there’s nothing to download. It handles up to 8 people. It doesn’t seem to have as many features but is very simple and easy to use.
Anyway, I’ve downloaded Zoom. If I find anything dodgy I’ll let you know.