Zoom to a New World

Wow, what a different world we are in since my last post on March 23 when we went from 'Social Distancing' to 'Physical Distancing' to 'Shelter-in-Place' I'm sure by now that you have had some type of web-based video meeting using some form of video conferencing software. Because it is free, Zoom has been the defacto web conferencing software of choice. You may have been also been invited to a WebEx, or GoToMeeting, two of the oldest and most mature platforms for (business) video conferencing.

If you are new to video conferencing, you probably struggled with downloading the 'plug-in' or 'extension' to your web browser, then forgot to enable either your microphone, or web camera, or both. Or you realized that your computer was not setup for video and had to join with your smart phone (which is a whole other experience).

In a nutshell, web conferencing can be difficult, especially for people new to the concept, because there are so many variations of software and available platforms on which to participate.

For me, video conferencing is second nature because I have been using GoToMeeting and WebEx for years to meet with customers. But I digress.

The popularity of Zoom and its rocket rise to the top, caught many by surprise, but also spurred other software companies like Microsoft and Google to start marketing to individual users or, as in Facebook's case, roll out entirely new video conferencing software.

Microsoft Teams was launched as a response to the rise of Slack, a free messaging and collaboration tool. Microsoft teams is free and includes video conferencing as one of its tools. It, and Skype, another Microsoft product, have experienced phenomenal growth in the last month. The nice thing about Teams is, like Zoom, all you need is a link (and download a plug-in) to join a video conference.

Google's 'Hangouts' has video conferencing, but you have to have a Google account to join the meeting. Google announced yesterday, April 28th, that its 'Google Meet Premium' software will be free to everyone. In the past, you had to subscribe to 'G-Suite' their business focused software to use the 'Meet' feature. The link above indicates that you will have to sign up with an email address, but I'm not sure if you will have to sign up if you simply want to join a meeting. One benefit of 'Meet' is that no plug-ins are required with any of the modern browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Unfortunately, 'Meet' is not currently available, but is scheduled to roll out in early May. You can sign up at the link above to be notified when it is available.

Last week, on April 24th, Facebook announced 'Messenger Rooms' as well as "more ways to connect when you are apart" using Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook is promoting the idea that gatherings should be 'spontaneous' by creating a 'room' from within Facebook or Messenger. The announcement states that they will soon add similar features to Instagram and WhatsApp (see my previous post on these apps). It also states that you can "invite anyone to join your video call, even if they don’t have a Facebook account". It will be interesting to see how this works and what Facebook will do when it gets its hands on contact information from 'outside' its ecosphere.

We are definitely living in a new world, one that is much different than it was two months ago. Hopefully you have been able to connect with your friends and loved ones through video conferencing, in spite of the difficulties that you may have encountered. One thing about having so many options for video conferencing is that the competition will raise the bar (and lower the cost) for making the technology easier for us all to use.

That's all for now; thanks for reading!