Perfect Video Conferencing Blog

It's Great, But Five Inexcusable Video Conferencing Flaws

Written by perfect VC | Mar 3, 2016 7:50:16 AM

Using Zoom for the first time, it's easy to see that it is in-fact very different. But for those who haven't experienced it before, they can be blind to the flaws of their existing broken solutions, instead operating under the assumption that all video collaboration is created equal and ultimately the same. This is no longer true!

One of our employees saw this first hand when talking to her husband, who had insisted that his company is happy with their current provider. Finally, he admitted a flaw: "I guess the only thing would be if a person on their smart phone wants to come into a meeting with a conference room, they have to use all these dial-in codes and stuff. It would be better if they could streamline that." The Zoom employee practically yelled, "That's what Zoom does! It's one touch to connect all kinds of devices! This is what I've been telling you!"

People think their solution is just fine because they can't imagine there is something better out there. So let's look at a few of those. It's fine but [insert xyz fatal flaw] situations.

It's great except you can't easily connect different types of devices.
Taking the example above, most solutions can't connect a conference room to a desktop or a mobile device. If they can, it requires an expensive bridge that necessitates inputting codes to join the meeting. Not so with Zoom. First, if you have a meeting invitation, you can join from mobile, desktop, or Zoom Room with a single click to the meeting link or Start Meeting. And if you want to invite someone on-the-fly, you can click Invite and then find their name to invite them via IM or email. Simple!

It's perfect I mean, video conferencing is always expensive, right?
Generally, yes, it is, even for cloud solutions. And this is, frankly, a total rip off. Bandwidth is cheap and software doesn't require manufacturing costs. That's why Zoom is affordable: because we can be. You can use Zoom for free. If you want to get unlimited group minutes, you can upgrade to Pro, and still get a highly affordable $14.99 per/month price.

It's fine sometimes it takes five minutes to get everyone into the meeting and all systems operating, but once we start it pretty much works.
Let's be clear, if it takes more than a few seconds for meeting participants to click on the link and join your meeting, there is something wrong with your software. Even for first time participants on Zoom, clicking on the link leads to a lightweight client download and then the automatic opening of the meeting. This should take just a minute or so at most. So, if it feels like your software makes you download a new version every other week, or if you're sick of staring at that spinning ball while you wait for your meeting to start, know that your software is not so fine after all.

It works okay though it would be cool if we could see more than six people on video at once.
That would be cool. And guess what? That is also totally doable. Even Zoom's free version allows for up to 50 video participants in one meeting, and we can go up to 200 video participants.

We like it though I wish it had this one crazy feature that I'm sure hasn't been invented yet.
If you think of a meeting feature, chances are someone else has already thought of it. It might not be so crazy. MP4 recording? Video breakout rooms? Co-annotation? Mobile screen sharing? Screen sharing a video with native source audio? Remote control of someone else's screen? It turns out these aren't crazy. All are existing features in the Zoom platform that come standard with our free plan. So dream big! Zoom's got your back.

At Zoom, we use our video conferencing solutions every day, all day. Whenever we see a potential way of doing something better, have some "It's great, but" or "It would be cool if" moment, we don't just move on with our day. We email our CEO, and if the idea is feasible, he works it into our engineering road map. We don't settle, and neither should you. Tired of making excuses? Sign up for a no obligation live one-on-one demo with a Zoom product specialist today and experience the Zoom difference first-hand!

Source: http://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2016/03/03/five-inexcusable-video-conferencing-flaws/