Since the global outbreak of the COVID-19, teleconferencing has become a new normal for most meetings and work communications. It’s almost like a new social bubble sprung up and every big tech company wants to pop it.
Before now, Zoom Video Communications Inc. already made a statement by eliminating the premise that important business calls only happened in a board room. The product allows anyone to join a meeting with a link, unescorted by any compulsory registration process.
Zoom also supports video streams of up to 100 concurrent participants, meanwhile Google Hangouts, a similar app allows a max of 10 for free, or 25 paid.
Since the shutdowns across major cities and intensified social distancing measures, Zoom has become a popular app known by parents, co-workers, friends, grandparents, and neighbours. People have flocked to the service to keep up with friends, work meetings, build digital clubs, and even host weddings.
Despite all the scrutiny the company has received in the past few days concerning security and privacy risks, Zoom keeps rising in adoption and stocks, that it has become envied by the big wigs including Microsoft and Facebook.
On Friday, Facebook announced the launch of a new video chat feature that appears to be a rival to Zoom and Microsoft’s Teams service. News of Facebook’s new video foray sent Zoom shares tumbling 4% in late-afternoon trading Friday.
Labelled ‘Messenger Rooms,’ it looks, feels and functions like Zoom, and lets up to 50 people join at once for free. One of the main differences between Messenger Rooms and regular Messenger video calls is that you don’t have to download an app or even have a Facebook account.
According to The Next Web, the app also supports fake backgrounds like Zoom, though Facebook goes a bit further by allowing you to set 360-degree backdrops that move as you do. You can use the AR filters you are used to as well, but the company says it’s also offering 14 new filters to modify the lighting during your video calls to make things look a little more interesting. This means Facebook didn’t just go for Zoom, it went for Skype, House Party, Hangouts and Teams, all at once.
The company also announced that WhatsApp video calls can now host up to eight people instead of four. This development is also quite timely, following Zuckerberg’s recent order that Facebook would not hold meetings of more than 50 people until June 2021.
