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> The answer is: It just works. It's easy. It does what we want it to, with a minimum of fuss. I guess I'd like to know the details of how its easier than the

> The answer is: It just works. It's easy. It does what we want it to, with a minimum of fuss. I guess I'd like to know the details of how its easier than the other of myriad of products on the market for you? At my company we use Slack Video calls, WebEx, and Zoom, and they seem as identical as each other (I'd argue Slack is easiest since we're all logged into it all the time, but that's us).

e40 7y ago
Slack for video calls was terrible (when I used it last year). Slack removed screen sharing, which means I can't easily do screen sharing and debugging on the same call. WebEx and G2M are much less easy to use.
- noisem4ker 7y ago
  I'm using screen sharing on Slack just fine.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Parent may be talking about remote control through a screenshare? It used to be a feature, and then they removed it.
    - e40 7y ago
      Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
  - nemothekid 7y ago
    Slack screenshare doesn't work at all at iOS (As in if you are on an iPad/iPhone, and someone else screenshares, you can't see their screen at all)
  - e40 7y ago
    Remote control was removed, which is an important feature for many of us.
pixiemaster 7y ago
Slack video calls don’t work for 10 ppl or more. webex quality is very bad for 35+ active participants. Teams etc. have very bad quality during this crisis induced load. lots of the solutions currently are barely working (google with only bad quality, others don’t have working phone call in etc. Zoom just keeps working, for everyone. to put this into perspective: that’s mostly for uses cases beyond 3ppl or 2+ countries, so i’d guess 90% of the users of all tools are unaffected.
- Roritharr 7y ago
  Two days ago I was in a Zoom Townhall Meeting, shortly after a friend of mine who is working at Deutsche Telekom (largest telco in DE) told me that their internal webconferencing solution is crushing under the load and staff is advised not to use video when it's not critical. Our Zoom THM with 130 participants ran without any issues whatsoever. I'm stunned how flawlessly they seam to scale. I want to work with the people responsible for this tbh.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    Yeah, it feels like overnight with this pandemic that "zooming" turned into the verb of choice (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/comments/fmfdh6/my_old_company_mandated_using_video_during/ https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/comments/fmfdh6/my_old_c... ), even for friends of mine who are non-technical and have never used it before, and this is not surprising. Its scalability during this pandemic has been amazing, getting into a zoom call for new users is as simple as clicking a link, and the "brady bunch view" when you have more than 5 people is better than anything else I've tried.
  - jeena 7y ago
    Our town-hall meeting was 12000 (twelve tousend) people and there was no problem. We used it in some special mode where you only could open your microphone but not the video. I have no idea how many countries we were from but we're a fortune 500 company. We regularly have milestone meetings at a custommer with 300 people joining with the normal setup where everyone can join the conversation, never had any problems with zoom.
jedberg 7y ago
To have a slack call, you must first create a slack team and get everyone onboarded to slack. So sure, if you're all already in slack it's ok. But my five year old niece isn't in a slack team already, nor my in-laws.
- thoraway1010 7y ago
  It's actually not that easy with cross team / cross company slack calls, especially depending on how your company set up slack. So it's both onboarding and some configuration to get everyone invited / permission properly. Or you know - send over my zoom meeting room number - and done.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Exactly. Even when both people use Slack, if they aren't on the same slack it's a huge pain.
wuliwong 7y ago
My experience is that Slack video is not nearly in the same class as Zoom. Granted, I haven't used Slack video for work in a year or two but I have been using Zoom at my company for the last 9 months and it has really been flawless. I didn't want to like it but I kinda do now. hah.
crispinb 7y ago
Researching a 'myriad of products' takes its own time, perhaps not usefully if you're dealing with heaps of 'unanticipated shit' in a time of crisis. Zoom is well known, so people are likely to try it early in the process. If it works they may choose to move on to other things. This may not be the perfect process in the abstract, but in reality it's practical.
impendia 7y ago
> I guess I'd like to know the details of how its easier than the other of myriad of products on the market for you? I haven't comparison shopped yet. And, for that matter, I haven't initiated any Zoom meeting myself, except once when someone else requested I do so. (I used Blackboard to meet with my classes.) I just noticed that it's been popular with others, and I've gotten it up and running with no effort. I am trying out MS Teams, but it's a pain to setup. Multiple emails back and forth to tech support, and apparently I have to go in and manually add every person I want included. From what I can tell, it seems to be designed around a rather elaborate setup, in a situation where you consistently communicate with the same handful of people. With Zoom, it's "click on this link". You don't have to have configured anything in advance. Especially useful when you want your meetings to be open. As an example, you can now watch the Number Theory Seminar at MIT, live: https://math.mit.edu/nt/ https://math.mit.edu/nt/ (The password is there to prevent trolling, but there's no serious need for security.)

e40 7y ago

Slack for video calls was terrible (when I used it last year). Slack removed screen sharing, which means I can't easily do screen sharing and debugging on the same call. WebEx and G2M are much less easy to use.

noisem4ker 7y ago
I'm using screen sharing on Slack just fine.
- ethbro 7y ago
  Parent may be talking about remote control through a screenshare? It used to be a feature, and then they removed it.
  - e40 7y ago
    Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
- nemothekid 7y ago
  Slack screenshare doesn't work at all at iOS (As in if you are on an iPad/iPhone, and someone else screenshares, you can't see their screen at all)
- e40 7y ago
  Remote control was removed, which is an important feature for many of us.

pixiemaster 7y ago

Slack video calls don’t work for 10 ppl or more. webex quality is very bad for 35+ active participants. Teams etc. have very bad quality during this crisis induced load. lots of the solutions currently are barely working (google with only bad quality, others don’t have working phone call in etc. Zoom just keeps working, for everyone. to put this into perspective: that’s mostly for uses cases beyond 3ppl or 2+ countries, so i’d guess 90% of the users of all tools are unaffected.

Roritharr 7y ago
Two days ago I was in a Zoom Townhall Meeting, shortly after a friend of mine who is working at Deutsche Telekom (largest telco in DE) told me that their internal webconferencing solution is crushing under the load and staff is advised not to use video when it's not critical. Our Zoom THM with 130 participants ran without any issues whatsoever. I'm stunned how flawlessly they seam to scale. I want to work with the people responsible for this tbh.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  Yeah, it feels like overnight with this pandemic that "zooming" turned into the verb of choice (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/comments/fmfdh6/my_old_company_mandated_using_video_during/ https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/comments/fmfdh6/my_old_c... ), even for friends of mine who are non-technical and have never used it before, and this is not surprising. Its scalability during this pandemic has been amazing, getting into a zoom call for new users is as simple as clicking a link, and the "brady bunch view" when you have more than 5 people is better than anything else I've tried.
- jeena 7y ago
  Our town-hall meeting was 12000 (twelve tousend) people and there was no problem. We used it in some special mode where you only could open your microphone but not the video. I have no idea how many countries we were from but we're a fortune 500 company. We regularly have milestone meetings at a custommer with 300 people joining with the normal setup where everyone can join the conversation, never had any problems with zoom.

jedberg 7y ago

To have a slack call, you must first create a slack team and get everyone onboarded to slack. So sure, if you're all already in slack it's ok. But my five year old niece isn't in a slack team already, nor my in-laws.

thoraway1010 7y ago
It's actually not that easy with cross team / cross company slack calls, especially depending on how your company set up slack. So it's both onboarding and some configuration to get everyone invited / permission properly. Or you know - send over my zoom meeting room number - and done.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Exactly. Even when both people use Slack, if they aren't on the same slack it's a huge pain.

wuliwong 7y ago

My experience is that Slack video is not nearly in the same class as Zoom. Granted, I haven't used Slack video for work in a year or two but I have been using Zoom at my company for the last 9 months and it has really been flawless. I didn't want to like it but I kinda do now. hah.

crispinb 7y ago

Researching a 'myriad of products' takes its own time, perhaps not usefully if you're dealing with heaps of 'unanticipated shit' in a time of crisis. Zoom is well known, so people are likely to try it early in the process. If it works they may choose to move on to other things. This may not be the perfect process in the abstract, but in reality it's practical.

impendia 7y ago

> I guess I'd like to know the details of how its easier than the other of myriad of products on the market for you? I haven't comparison shopped yet. And, for that matter, I haven't initiated any Zoom meeting myself, except once when someone else requested I do so. (I used Blackboard to meet with my classes.) I just noticed that it's been popular with others, and I've gotten it up and running with no effort. I am trying out MS Teams, but it's a pain to setup. Multiple emails back and forth to tech support, and apparently I have to go in and manually add every person I want included. From what I can tell, it seems to be designed around a rather elaborate setup, in a situation where you consistently communicate with the same handful of people. With Zoom, it's "click on this link". You don't have to have configured anything in advance. Especially useful when you want your meetings to be open. As an example, you can now watch the Number Theory Seminar at MIT, live: https://math.mit.edu/nt/ https://math.mit.edu/nt/ (The password is there to prevent trolling, but there's no serious need for security.)