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The secret sauce for Zoom seems to reliability. For some reason it just always works, independent of how many people join the call (we have calls with more than

by jeena 8y ago

The secret sauce for Zoom seems to reliability. For some reason it just always works, independent of how many people join the call (we have calls with more than 100 people calling in independently), which OS you use (most of us use Linux, but also Android, Windows, macOS and iOS). It just always works, in the last two years I had zero problems with it, no idea how they do it.

pg_bot 8y ago
Last I checked Zoom avoids using WebRTC in favor of using media over websockets. This should obviate a lot of the reliability problems with enterprise networks that you would normally need to solve with STUN/TURN/ICE. I think the other thing they do is decrease the image quality when multiple people are simultaneously connected. This is a nice hack since you don't really notice the difference, and users blame bad images on the network not the product. The biggest challenge to their business IMO is if/when WebRTC becomes stable between all browsers. There are still many kinks that need to be worked out. Everything falls apart in the P2P version when you have more than like 5 people connected as the amount of information that needs to be transferred across the network scales exponentially.[0] So you need to add a gateway and connect everyone over a single pipe. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
NowThenGoodBad 8y ago
pg_bot covered the technical side, I'll take the social side. That's the great thing. There might be an entire market of options out there for an idea, but if they don't get something like reliability right, then that's the easiest foot in the door.
mandeepj 7y ago
I thought let's download and try to find out their secret sauce by reverse engineering. Their download is just a web browser client [0]. So, my guess is pg_bot is right. They might be using web sockets. more details - https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ [0] - https://www.zoom.us/download#client_4meeting https://www.zoom.us/download#client_4meeting

by jeena 8y ago

pg_bot 8y ago

Last I checked Zoom avoids using WebRTC in favor of using media over websockets. This should obviate a lot of the reliability problems with enterprise networks that you would normally need to solve with STUN/TURN/ICE. I think the other thing they do is decrease the image quality when multiple people are simultaneously connected. This is a nice hack since you don't really notice the difference, and users blame bad images on the network not the product. The biggest challenge to their business IMO is if/when WebRTC becomes stable between all browsers. There are still many kinks that need to be worked out. Everything falls apart in the P2P version when you have more than like 5 people connected as the amount of information that needs to be transferred across the network scales exponentially.[0] So you need to add a gateway and connect everyone over a single pipe. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

NowThenGoodBad 8y ago

pg_bot covered the technical side, I'll take the social side. That's the great thing. There might be an entire market of options out there for an idea, but if they don't get something like reliability right, then that's the easiest foot in the door.

mandeepj 7y ago

I thought let's download and try to find out their secret sauce by reverse engineering. Their download is just a web browser client [0]. So, my guess is pg_bot is right. They might be using web sockets. more details - https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ [0] - https://www.zoom.us/download#client_4meeting https://www.zoom.us/download#client_4meeting