Want to get a few people in side-by-side video chat, but don't want to set everybody up with Skype, video conference software, or a Google+ Hangout? Head to Meetings.io, create a room, and give your people the look. In seconds, you're all chatting live in a simple side-by-side setup.
Meetings.io does all the stuff you want—video, audio, chat, notes—and doesn't ask for hardly anything at all. Coming soon are screen sharing and file sharing, but given the live chat and notepad capabilities, it's not too hard to link out your files through another service (like Dropbox). The creator of the meeting room can invite and approve people one by one, or make the room public. There are even buttons to email or SMS meeting recipients to give them the link. Google+ Hangouts definitely have the edge in a few areas, including audio control and Docs integration, but if video chat is the thing you want, Meetings.io does it quite well, with no overhead.
Meetings.io requires Flash, and will ask you to approve peer-to-peer something or other, along with the standard video/audio sharing options. It didn't work for me on Linux, but worked like a charm for Whitson and I on Mac systems. It's free to use, and signing up gets you your own permanent meeting room address, along with a few more controls.
Meetings.io | via TechCrunch
Skype for Mac received a helpful update today, adding proper fullscreen mode in OS X Lion and the ability to update itself—which has been a very long absent feature. The new app also offers an improved user interface for group video calling, plus the ability to delete conversations and disable audio gain control. Like all updates, a few bugs were also fixed. If you're a heavy Skype user, you'll want to download this one right away so you don't have to remember to check for updates anymore.
Chrome: Google's chat feature is useful for sending quick IMs and starting video chat sessions, but you can only view it when you're on a Google page like Gmail. Google has released an official Chrome extension that detaches it from your browser, allowing you to view it no matter what web page you're viewing. 
If you're looking to beef up your kitchen skills, you can buy inexpensive cooking classes from ChefHangout, and learn tons of recipes over Google Hangouts. 
