We've been able to let others see our device (phone, tablet or computer) and in-call status for little over a year now, along with being able to "set your mood for today" with an emoji. The Hangouts team obviously feels that sometimes an emoji isn't enough, which is why rolling out today, text statuses can be added.
Inside the new text field on Hangouts for Chrome and the web, you can add a mix of text, emoji and as always, your status will be visible to everyone you use Hangouts with.
Of course, this isn't a revolutionary change. Other instant messengers have had this feature since the very late 90's. I'm struggling to shake off the nostalgia from the MSN Messenger's glory days. Maybe the Hangouts team have been reminiscing too?
Text statuses should be rolling out to everyone over the next couple of days, and could appear in the mobile versions as an app or server-side update. We'll keep you posted.
Thanks for the tip, +Mohamed Magdy