Previously, the option was only available to have up to 10 people which was not bad at all to begin with.
But according to Google: “Like Google Apps, we think Google+ can help colleagues collaborate more easily and get things done. Google+ Hangouts in particular make it easy to hold face-to-face meetings with others from any device with a camera and an internet connection. Starting this week, you will be able to invite up to 15 people to a hangout, compared to the previous 10-person limit.”
So, if you are a frequent user, then the 10 person limit will remain the same. This small increase is said to better aid businesses, schools, and government employees who rely off of video chat to communicate with others wherever they may be.
Elaborating further on the essential features, the company executive said, “It is still simple to get the most out of your hangouts: schedule a hangout in a calendar entry, join a hangout directly from Gmail and open a Google doc inside a hangout so everyone can write or edit together,” says Google Apps product manager Ronald Ho.
And “finally more schools will be able to use Google+. Until now, Google+ has only been available to verified higher education institutions. Now, any school using Google Apps for Education can enable Google+ and access the same features that businesses and government can,” Ronald Ho added.
More so, it was just a few months ago Google announced that developers have built over 200 apps specifically for Hangouts. But unfortunately, this recently enhanced limit will roll out over the next few days to Apps for Government, Apps for Business, and Apps for Education customers.
But shortly after the news emerged, positive feedback from users has been pouring in. Chee Chew who is the Engineering Director behind Hangouts, had this to say:
“In our internal testing, we found that social conversations break down if it is too large. If you are at dinner with 15 people, you usually shard into separate conversations or you start talking over each other really badly. However, in a business meeting where it is structured, a 15 person meeting works reasonably well so now we are enabling 15 person hangouts for biz.”
In fact, many businesses and schools who felt limited by the ten number, so upping it to fifteen definitely is an improvement. And with this enhancement, Skype should be a bit worried with Google Plus Hangouts quickly becoming the premier video chat tool for millions worldwide.