This era has changed video communication drastically due to the global pandemic. Now, there is a wide range of real-time video collaborative applications available, suitable for all your needs and requirements.
Business enterprises, educational, and governmental organizations are promoting video conferences as a way to connect with remote workers as well as learners. This method can also prevent people from having direct contact with others, keeping both sides happy.
According to a report, several factors help video collaborative apps achieve steady market growth – for example, business ventures who’re trying to expand their firm globally. But, the outbreak of Covid has exaggerated the impact of video collaborative apps even more positively.
Zoom is one of these video conferencing apps that have hiked up their value in their growing market due to the recent pandemic. It has allowed people to explore more video-based technology and integrate these apps into their daily lifestyle.
Now, let’s learn a little more about this powerful video conferencing app and the features that it has to offer to its users:
What is Zoom?
Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing software app that can be used for personal and business purposes. It enables us to visually interact with our colleagues if it’s for work purposes or with our loved ones during our recreational time. It is also nowadays widely used for hosting social events, too.
It was founded by Eric Yuan in 2011. Since then, it has seen a steady rise in its users especially during the Covid pandemic where in-person meetings are impossible. It offers a lot of products and services for personal users and business enterprises.
You may have heard these words while dealing with Zoom: Zoom meetings and Zoom room.
Zoom Meetings
They simply refer to the video conferencing meetings that are hosted in the Zoom platform. Attendees can join the meeting in person remotely in the comfort of their homes or anywhere they are via their desktop camera or phones.
Zoom Room
This is a software-defined video conferencing physical hardware setup that lets companies conduct meetings in their conference rooms. It allows users to schedule, launch and run a meeting with the push of a button.
How to Subscribe to Zoom?
For personal users– you need not use a paid subscription for Zoom. If somebody else sets a meeting, they can just send you a link through an email or a message.
You can just click on the link, follow the instructions in the message and create an account for free by joining the online Zoom website application on your browser.
But, if you need to schedule a meeting, you need to create an account for free and download the Zoom meeting application. To download the app on your desktop computer, follow these steps.
- Click on this website link: https://zoom.us/ to visit the official Zoom website.
- Click on the “ SIGN UP, IT’S FREE” icon
- Create your account using your email id
- Follow the instructions provided by the website to download and install the application.
You can also download it on your phones using Apple App Store or Android Play Store and enjoy the features of the app on your phones on the go.
For business enterprises: It offers a lot of plans according to the company’s usage.
Let us now delve deeper into the subscriptions and the features they provide:
Choosing a Zoom plan:
Zoom can offer plans that are apt for any situation, be it one-to-one chat sessions or group calls for training sessions, webinars, and conference meetings.
There are five different types of subscriptions:
- Zoom free: This subscription is free. An unlimited number of meetings can be held using this subscription but each meeting will have a time limit of 40 minutes.
- Zoom pro: This subscription costs $14.99/£11.99 per month. It helps the host to create personal meeting IDs for repetitive meetings. Each meeting time limit will be extended to 24hrs.
- Zoom Business: This subscription costs $19.99/£15.99 per month. It lets companies brand meetings with vanity URLs and company branding. It also offers transcripts of Zoom meetings that are recorded and stores them in the cloud and offers dedicated customer support.
- Zoom Enterprise: This subscription also costs $19.99/£15.99 per month along with the ability to dedicate at least 100 hosts at the same time. It is recommended for companies with more than 1000 employees. It offers cloud storage for meeting recordings, a customer success manager, and discounts on webinars and rooms.
- Zoom rooms (Optional): as said earlier it is a software-defined video conferencing physical hardware setup. Zoom Rooms require an additional subscription on top of another Zoom subscription and is a recommended solution for larger companies with many employees holding meetings regularly.
Core features of Zoom:
- Host an unlimited number of one-on-one meetings even with the basic free plan.
- It can host up to 100 participants in a meeting with the basic plan if you subscribe to a higher plan like Zoom Pro. If it’s business, then your meeting can hold above 500 participants.
- The host of the meeting can share their screen for the participants to view.
- Meetings can be recorded with all types of subscriptions.
How to use Zoom?
How to schedule your Zoom meeting?
Once you have installed it on your computer, you can schedule a meeting via the app.
To start a meeting directly you can click on the “New Meeting” icon and share your meeting details with your participants by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to the “New Meeting” icon as shown in the picture:
To schedule a meeting in the future you can click on the “Schedule” icon. You will be asked to enter the details of your meeting on a pop-up screen like the title of your meeting, creating a password for your meeting, etc. as shown in the picture:
How to make your Zoom meeting private?
Zoom has defined all of its security features in its security and privacy features guide. To find out more about the details click on this link: https://zoom.us/trust
Ever heard of the Zoom bombing?! It occurs when uninvited individuals gain access to the meeting created by you.
Sometimes these individuals join in the meeting to disrupt the meeting, defeating the meeting’s purpose.
These unwanted interruptions can be avoided by enabling privacy settings. Here’s how to enable them so that you can conduct your meetings hassle-free:
Creating a password for your meeting:
When you schedule a new meeting, in the pop-up window that appears, you will find a Security section. Under this section, you will find a password area.
This area would allow us to type a password that can then be shared with your participants. It is recommended to type a strong password, thus making it difficult for those who don’t have a password to join your meeting.
Using the waiting room feature:
The waiting room feature enables the host to determine who can enter the meeting. The meeting host can select those who can enter the meeting one by one or allow all members to enter at once.
To enable this feature, under the “Schedule Meeting” icon in the pop-up window that appears, you will need to click on the drop-down arrow next to the “Advanced options”. Under it, check the box next to “Enable waiting room”
Limit who can share their screen:
When your meeting has started, click on the arrow next to the “Share Screen” button, then click on “Advanced sharing options“. Under the option “Who can share?” select the option “Only Host” to make sure the meeting host is the only participant who can share their screen.
Locking the meeting:
When your meeting has started on the Zoom toolbar, you will be able to view the icon for “Manage Participants”. When you click it, you will be able to view your participants on the right-hand side of the screen.
Click on the “More” button and then select the option “Lock Meeting”. This will prevent the joining of any new participants even if they have the password.
How to record a Zoom meeting?
If you’re holding an important meeting, it might get difficult to remember all the points said inside the meeting, here you can use the recording feature to save you the trouble.
To record on your desktop, follow these steps:
- Log in to your Zoom account inside the desktop app.
- Start your meeting with your participants.
- Click on the “Record” button which can be found on the right-hand side of the toolbar.
- To stop the recording click on the “Pause/Stop” button or the “End Meeting” button.
Once you finish recording on your desktop. You will be able to find the recording in these locations:
- If in Windows: C:\Users\User Name\Documents\Zoom
- If in Mac: /Users/User Name/Documents/Zoom
To record a meeting on your phone you need to follow these steps:
- Launch the app.
- Click on the “Start a meeting” or “Join meet” button.
- You will find a three-dot menu button at the bottom right of your screen. Click on it.
- Click on the “Record” button.
- Once you have finished the recording Click on the “Pause/Stop” or you can end the meeting.
Once the meeting is done, you will be able to find the recording in the “My Recordings” section.
So that’s all about Zoom and how does it work.
I hope you found this article useful. In case, you have any questions or comments, you can ask them in the comments section provided below.
