Can Businesses ooVoo?

With businesses becoming increasingly social, new platforms whose growth have previously been fueled by teens and Gen Y workers, are now being considered as valuable workplace tools. Buoyed by the fast-growing usage of mobile apps, social video chat startup ooVoo has been growing fast, topping 54 million total users up from 46 million users just a few months ago. Its new iPad and Android apps feature high-quality, four-way video chat sessions between users, group messaging and push notifications to enable users to keep connected at all times. ooVoo users have many ways to connect with each other and can now log in and chat via Facebook, Mac and PC desktop apps. Pinning its future on the continued growth of mobile -- about 30 percent of all video traffic comes from mobile devices -- ooVoo can enhance business operations in both the sales and customer service areas.

A field sales team could be instantly connected to help a lead Rainmaker close a deal. The four-way video chat could also help answer prospect questions instantly by linking in product engineers or IT personnel. On the customer service side, call center service reps can personalize the customer experience via an app like ooVoo. Similar to the sales scenario, existing customers could have both a service rep and technical specialist serve their needs simultaneously.

Finding practical business applications to all of the very "cool" platforms our teenagers trial first is smart business.