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Discussion on: Why I Love Skype Meetings

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thorstenhirsch profile image
Thorsten Hirsch

I don't like telephone conferences, no matter if initiated with computer software or not.

  • voice quality is bad (I'm pretty sure it was much better 20 years ago)
  • there's a delay that is just long enough that the one talking last starts to repeat when someone else starts to answer
  • some people activate hands-free, which is often accompanied by an echo, which makes them and everybody else even harder to understand
  • the ones working in their home office or an open space office "entertain" everybody with their background noise
  • another great feature of some telephones is to play music in the conference when muting or calling someone else on a 2nd line (well, at least you don't make this mistake more than one or two times)

But Skype/Hangout/... are okay for pair programming and when you want someone else to take a look at a problem on your computer (screen sharing).

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_patrickgod profile image
Patrick God

I'm with you. A proper setup is mandatory. That's why we use Skype with a headset and a webcam. Everyone tries to provide a quiet space so that nobody gets annoyed and if anything is disturbing (like a ringing phone, cracking headsets, loud background, etc) we simply tell each other and the problem gets solved almost always immediately.