For years I’ve been a Skype user — not a heavy user but a regular one. With Skype video a few years ago it became even stronger because conversations are better when you get to see and hear the person on the other end. With our daily check-ins we had a standard call-in number for anyone not at the meeting. After Skype came out with group chat we started trying to use it for our daily check-ins but the friction was too high as one person had to initiate the connection to the other people potentially on the call, which was too time consuming for a daily 10 minute meeting.
Google Hangout came along and solved our problems.
Google Hangout is great because you can make a private room, XYZ Startup, and then share it as a link with other members of your team. Everyone can bookmark that link and then whenever a meeting occurs anyone invited can join the hangout room and have full voice and video capabilities. There’s also screen sharing and other collaboration tools right in the virtual room.
Oh, and the best part is that it’s free.
What else? What are your thoughts on Google Hangout?
David Cummings on Startups 
Had some stability issues lately, but love it overall. Co-watching videos and document sharing are great features.
I agree. At tadpoles we have moved out of our physical office thanks to Google hangout. We keep it up all day to allow for fluid conversations. Chat is nice but video is much more efficient.
The service would be perfect if it didn’t randomly kick you out after a short idle time.
Can you explain how to “create a private room/hangout” I can’t seem to find out how to do it.
Here’s the help page for a “named room” in Google Hangout:
http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1666009