I am responsible for a set of online tutorials (video and audio) and I’ve found Skype unsatisfactory, problems include:

• not connecting students who are online to a multiuser call
• difficult to understand interface

I’ve done some research and hangouts seems to work well on all the common browsers and mobile devices.  My Geo-Google colleagues all swear by it and its also more intuitive which is a common characteristic of Google software IMHO.

So we’re piloting a tutorial using Hangouts.  I’ve prepared some notes for students to run through prior to coming on the call which I thought might be useful for someone thinking of trying out hangouts instead of Skype.