Hangouts Now Works With Google Apps Account

Pretty awesome. I was tired of having a Google Plus account for personal use and for work just to access Hangouts.

Very annoying that people would "discover me" on both Plus accounts when I did my best to hide both profiles.

> Update: Google had given us early access to its blog post about today’s announcement. In it, the company specifically referenced that anybody with a “Google account” could now use Hangouts with needing a Google+ profile. The final copy of the blog post changed that language to “any Google Apps customer account.” We regret the error.

The requirement to log in coupled with multiple Google accounts made starting a Hangout so painful every single time. I switched to http://appear.in months ago and love the simplicity it provides.

This has been a pet peeve of mine, the fact that, even in an organisation paying for Google Apps, you were required to enable Google+ to use Hangout.

The issue is that Google+ leaks information: your profile picture and full name get returned from google searches, even when all privacy settings are turned on.

If you are in a position where security and privacy are somewhat important (even if it's only to yourself), your only resort is to not use Google+ and by extension not be able to use Hangout, which becomes an issue when other people in the organisation need to communicate with you.

Fortunately, https://appear.in works great (even in China, unlike Hangout) and there's no extra software to install.

This is quite welcome. Having to run two G+ presences to be able to use hangouts personally and professionally was a big annoyance.

That said, I think it bodes poorly for the future of G+, since Hangouts is one of the biggest things it has going for it.

Now please extend this to Play Store app reviews and YouTube comments...I won't be holding my breath.

Too. Late. Users. Gave. Up. Already.

Signed,

Real Name? Ha!