what to know
- Zoom is a web conferencing platform for audio and/or video conferencing.
- You need a free account to initiate calls with up to 100 people; the paid version supports up to 1,000 people.
- You can make unlimited calls, hold unlimited meetings, and even record both.
Zoom is an online audio and web conferencing platform. People use it to make phone calls or participate in video conferences.
It was founded in 2011 by former Cisco executive Eric Yuan. Cisco offers the WebEx web conferencing platform, which remains a competitor in today's conferencing space. Yuan's rival Zoom has grown rapidly; the service launched in 2013 and had 1 million users by the end of the year.
By 2017, the company was valued at $1 billion. It became a public company in 2019 and has grown into one of the largest video conferencing solutions in use today.
Zoom is one of the most used conferencing tools, sometimes surpassing similar solutions like Skype and Google Chat in various surveys.
While Zoom offers many products and services to enterprise organizations, including Zoom Rooms (meeting rooms that run specialized software to make meetings easier), video webinars, and even phone systems,
Zoom's core product and how most people know the service is Zoom Meetings. Zoom meetings are audio and video conferences that allow two or more people to communicate online.
Zoom meetings take place within the Zoom app and can be started and shared by anyone; they can even be started for free through the app (if you have it installed) or the Zoom website.
You can also use Zoom on your phone or cast to your TV.
You don't need a paid subscription to start using Zoom. In fact, if someone else schedules a Zoom meeting and invites you, you can simply follow the instructions in the email invitation to start using Zoom.
You'll need to click the link to install the Zoom app and then enter the meeting code to log in to the meeting you're invited to.
To start your own Zoom meeting, you need a Zoom account, which you can create for free. Go to the Zoom website, click Sign up for free at the top of the page, and follow the instructions. Once completed, you will be able to start your own meeting.
Zoom offers a variety of Zoom meeting plans. Basic is free and lets you host meetings with up to 100 participants, with a time limit of 40 minutes per meeting. You can also hold an unlimited number of one-on-one meetings. All of these meetings can be audio-only or video conferencing.
Even at the free account level, you can record and save meetings, share your desktop with meeting participants, and use chat tools during meetings.
If the fairly feature-rich free basic plan isn't enough, you can pay for Zoom Pro, Zoom Business, or Zoom Enterprise.
Each of these adds substantial additional functionality, such as the ability to hold meetings with more than 100 people at once and extend meeting duration beyond 40 minutes (in fact, meetings can last as long as 24 hours). Depending on the plan chosen, features may include things like cloud storage, artificial intelligence capabilities, and translated subtitles.
