Zoom App Offers Free Videoconferencing Service For The Quarantine
After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, schools, and offices have been shut down across the globe. While everyone is looking for ways to set aside the panic and be productive during quarantine, Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Video Communications, has made his video conferencing tools free. His aim was to make it easier for businesses to run and schools to offer classes without much hassle. According to the data provided by mobile intelligence firm Apptopia, globally 343,000 people have downloaded the Zoom app out of which 60,000 people were from the U.S. alone. Only two months ago the statistics told a different story with around 90,000 people downloading the Zoom app worldwide and 27,000 people in the U.S. Yuan had already extended his help to the people in China by removing time limit from the video chats in Zoom’s free service. He has also decided to help the U.S, Japan, and Italy, by removing the limit for any K-12 schools that have been affected in these areas.
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The teachers and students have to fill out a form online using the official school email address and Zoom will then verify the accounts. On checking association with the school’s domain, they will be able to enjoy unlimited meeting time. For the overwhelming response received by Zoom, the company has decided to make the basic accounts available for Denmark, Austria, Ireland, France, Poland, South Korea, and Romania.
Yuan wants to make the Zoom app suitable for those who are working from home. He has already thought of better face lighting and a separate tool for professors who wish to give video lectures. He has also notified the Zoom staff to not make use of this grave situation for marketing purposes. The whole teaming is dealing with extra meetings to keep up with the overnight demand for the service provided by Zoom.
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The auto-scaling architecture used by Zoom helps it monitor the usage of the application. They can handle ten times the ordinary consumption and are well aware of their cloud capacity. They are also planning to include special filters that would smoothen out your skin and give your video a frame much like Instagram or Snapchat. The new set of features also includes something for the teachers like the angle of the video that will give them the feel of a classroom. The app has been ranked three among all free apps in the Apple store after Google and TikTik. It is the first time that a business app has made it to the top 3.
Image Credit: Christopher Blizzard
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