3 ms·

Zoom is only going to stay widely adopted until an easy, viable alternative comes along and gets in the good graces of people in charge. There are some alternat

Zoom is only going to stay widely adopted until an easy, viable alternative comes along and gets in the good graces of people in charge. There are some alternatives now, like Facebook's group calls on WhatsApp but that one's fallen out of favour for obvious reasons.

thekyle 6y ago
Aren't WhatsApp calls only on the mobile app? I think the desktop only does chats.
- kiwijamo 6y ago
  This rules WhatsApp out for many professional settings.
TuringNYC 6y ago
Thinking about it another way, consider the poor usability and experience of WebEx/Lync and juxtapose that to Zoom -- Zoom just works without any friction. A future Zoom-killer app would need to provide that much better service.
- soylentcola 6y ago
  I'm curious as to how Zoom is that much different from Webex (at least from the user perspective). I've been using both working in a university setting with all remote classes and as far as the UI, Zoom is almost a copy of Webex with some minor differences. In Webex I can either send someone the link to my personal room or I can schedule a meeting via Outlook (with a Webex plugin)or the Webex app. With Zoom I can either start a meeting with my personal meeting ID or I can schedule a meeting via Outlook (with a Zoom plugin) or the Zoom app. Inside both there are buttons to turn on/off mic, camera, change settings of those things, share the screen, and if I am the host, I can assign various privileges or revoke them. I haven't used Lync in years so I have no idea what that's like, but from what I've seen, Webex and Zoom are basically in a back and forth to add the handful of minor features they're missing compared to the other. Zoom has been improving security options and defaults. Webex added virtual backgrounds and is about to add breakout rooms. I understand that there are bigger differences in enterprise license options and backend, but for users they seem like similar-looking fraternal twins.
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    Small differences are huge though. I gave up on WebEx over two years ago when finding Zoom, so I cant speak to them adding copy-cat features and catching up feature-wise. However, I first switched to zoom from WebEx based on: 1. One click meeting starts w/ a simple URL 2. One click meeting joins w/ a simple URL 3. Standing reservation-less room with a URL to remove the hassle of booked by 15-minute segments that WebEx wanted As for Lync, not sure where to start. There are times 3 or 4 years ago when you were lucky to be able to log in. Their auth was a mess and if -- God forbid -- you had a legacy Skype or legacy Microsoft account, there were strange auth/password reset loops where accessing your account was virtually impossible. You'll find plenty of discussion online about people who suddenly found themselves shut out of a decade-old Skype account because their Skype email was somehow mal-merged into a Microsoft account. I was similarly trapped in this endless loop of auth issues and gave up entirely on Lync.

thekyle 6y ago

Aren't WhatsApp calls only on the mobile app? I think the desktop only does chats.

kiwijamo 6y ago
This rules WhatsApp out for many professional settings.

TuringNYC 6y ago

Thinking about it another way, consider the poor usability and experience of WebEx/Lync and juxtapose that to Zoom -- Zoom just works without any friction. A future Zoom-killer app would need to provide that much better service.

soylentcola 6y ago
I'm curious as to how Zoom is that much different from Webex (at least from the user perspective). I've been using both working in a university setting with all remote classes and as far as the UI, Zoom is almost a copy of Webex with some minor differences. In Webex I can either send someone the link to my personal room or I can schedule a meeting via Outlook (with a Webex plugin)or the Webex app. With Zoom I can either start a meeting with my personal meeting ID or I can schedule a meeting via Outlook (with a Zoom plugin) or the Zoom app. Inside both there are buttons to turn on/off mic, camera, change settings of those things, share the screen, and if I am the host, I can assign various privileges or revoke them. I haven't used Lync in years so I have no idea what that's like, but from what I've seen, Webex and Zoom are basically in a back and forth to add the handful of minor features they're missing compared to the other. Zoom has been improving security options and defaults. Webex added virtual backgrounds and is about to add breakout rooms. I understand that there are bigger differences in enterprise license options and backend, but for users they seem like similar-looking fraternal twins.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  Small differences are huge though. I gave up on WebEx over two years ago when finding Zoom, so I cant speak to them adding copy-cat features and catching up feature-wise. However, I first switched to zoom from WebEx based on: 1. One click meeting starts w/ a simple URL 2. One click meeting joins w/ a simple URL 3. Standing reservation-less room with a URL to remove the hassle of booked by 15-minute segments that WebEx wanted As for Lync, not sure where to start. There are times 3 or 4 years ago when you were lucky to be able to log in. Their auth was a mess and if -- God forbid -- you had a legacy Skype or legacy Microsoft account, there were strange auth/password reset loops where accessing your account was virtually impossible. You'll find plenty of discussion online about people who suddenly found themselves shut out of a decade-old Skype account because their Skype email was somehow mal-merged into a Microsoft account. I was similarly trapped in this endless loop of auth issues and gave up entirely on Lync.