The Zoom App is both a mobile and web application for remote work meetings and one of the best ways to keep connected during this lock-down. You have a choice of video/audio-only or both during the live chats. It’s clear that most countries globally have issued directives of shutdowns forcing businesses to close.
The question of how do we work from home has started to give a few answers. Zoom being one of them might have taught you a few words by now. Words like Zoom meeting, am going to Zoom them, I had a Zoom call, find me in the Zoom room. Those words are everyday jargon to the very many who want to catch up on various meetings. Most of them will tell you, it is easy to use and gives its users seamless experiences. Its recommendations/reviews range from various world organizations/brands to local men like me in Uganda. I have personally been able to keep my side-hustles going courtesy of the zoom platform.
“We like that anybody on the go can use it. We have a very mobile workforce and we don’t want to be tied down to just offices. We are everywhere, so it’s very important to have the easiest way to go and start meetings”.
Shobhana Ahluwalia, Head of Information Technology (UBER)
I have to be very honest, there is no video conferencing/audio calling application worldwide that has taken advantage of the COVID_19 situation as Zoom has. The Guardian agrees too.
Zoom Video Communication’s share price has soared from under $70 a share in January, before the coronavirus struck in western countries, to $150 on Monday, 30th March 2020. That gives the company a market value of $42bn – more than eight times the market capitalization of British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines Group, for example.
The Guardian paper, UK
Away from the money figures, let’s see why this application is becoming so popular. Why is everyone using it? Is it worth the hype?
ALSO READ: 10 Collaboration tools to help you work effectively from home
Here are some Twitter users sharing their experiences.
Contents
Is Zoom FREE?
To keep your answer short, yes, zoom is FREE.
However, it has some paid options in case you want to advance and get more features. Here is a comparison between the zoom app free option and the pro plan.
| Basic plan (free) | Pro plan (starts from $14.99 per month/host) |
| Host up to 100 participants. Unlimited 1 to 1 ‘meetings’. 40 mins limit on group meetings. Unlimited number of meetings. Online support. Video Conferencing Features. Web Conferencing Features. Group Collaboration Features. Security. | Includes 100 participants. Need more participants? The meeting duration limit is 24 hrs. User management. Admin feature controls. Reporting. Custom. Personal Meeting ID. Assign scheduler. 1GB of MP4 or M4A cloud recording. |
The good news is that if you figure out you only need 40 minutes or less for your meetings, then there is no need for an upgrade. Zoom allows all of its users to host unlimited meetings with up to 100 participants.
If you need more participants, there are other paid plans for small & medium/enterprise businesses that give you up to 1000 members. You can check them out on Zoom’s official website. For now, I am sticking with the Basic plan as the quarantine plan that is helping me connect with my smaller remote teams in different areas.
How to get connected on Zoom?
- To access/use these plans, all you need is internet access, a smartphone/pad/laptop or any equivalent device.
- Go to your google play store if you are an android user or Appstore if you have an IOS device to download the free Zoom app.
- In case you have a laptop, go straight to the web browser (Chrome/Firefox, etc) and type www.zoom.com.
- Talking about browsers, Zoom browser extensions is another tool for quickly starting or scheduling a Zoom meeting comes in the form of an extension for your favorite browser.
- There is a Zoom Chrome extension and Firefox add-on that lets you schedule a Zoom meeting via Google Calendar. A simple click on the Zoom button and you can start a meeting or schedule one for later with all the information on the meeting being sent via Google Calendar to make it easy for participants to join.
- Don’t forget that you need internet access to enjoy these services. This will take you straight to the web platform where you will be required to freely sign up. I used my email address and found it pretty fast, you can just tap the sign up using my email address tab.
Zoom App collaboration features you need to know
Meeting ID
A meeting ID helps you eliminate the need to constantly set up a new chat room every time you have meetings. It’s like the badge number that identifies you to that specific office discussion room. You can use it repeatedly. Participants can save this code to reference for every planned meeting. You can start any meeting without having to schedule it in Zoom. Instead of constantly scheduling meetings in Zoom, just schedule them on your company calendar and let meeting IDs work.
Host controls
You must be familiar with the word Host, more like a person who receives and entertains guests. This time in Zoom, a host has certain privileges. You know handling remote meetings can be tricky if you are all going to bump into the chat. That’s why you need that leader/admin/host. They help in the smooth running of things. Yes, team members can change their settings on the other side of the apps like don’t show the video before I come in, mute audio, enhance skin and more but you all should know that the host is the boss. A meeting host is the manager of the group discussion, has options of controlling the participant’s audio, video and simultaneous screen sharing settings.
Raise hand feature
Have you been to that disorganized meeting where everyone wants to speak? It’s disgusting, right? No one listens. Not in Zoom, okay yes you can choose to but there is a feature to keep you a bit organized.
If the host chooses to mute all other participants unless called upon, the “raise hand” feature can be implemented. Just as if you were in a classroom, this button command allows a participant to notify the speaker that they have a question or comment to contribute. This feature prevents unneeded and distracting interruptions that can derail or drag out a meeting.
Simultaneous screen sharing
This feature is a great collaboration tool during meetings. It is the funnier part of engaging members on different aspects like presentations, ice-breakers, among others. The meeting host can choose to enable multiple members to share screens based on their team’s needs. You can have brainstorming sessions come out in visuals easily through distributing resources. It is great for the visual packaging of things and sharing different information in real-time.
Active speaker view
The Active speaker view is a real deal for awareness and achievement to the video call technology. It finds out who is speaking and displays a screen to their window. This is to notify other members who the active speaker is. Note that the gallery view allows you to see up to 25 screens at a time. You might need a bigger screen if your team is big. The question is what happens if the Corona-heat gets into the meeting arena, Zoom fore-knew that. If there is an argument and the feature gets confused on whose window to cast the screen onto, the meeting host can quickly choose the participant to lock the screen onto. Muting others/disabling it to create a calm environment for the meeting to continue.
Conclusion
There are other various features, and interesting Zoom add-ons but these few basic outlines above should get you started. Don’t miss that important meeting with your potential clients during this lockdown. In case you have any Zoom problem, please tell us below. Have you also used other collaboration platforms like or better than zoom? Please share them with us. For now, Stay Safe, and connected with Zoom.