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What is Video Conferencing?
The importance of video conferencing stems from its ability to allow people to communicate wherever they are in the world.
Whether it be an individual in Hong Kong and another in New York, video conferencing enables coworkers or potential business partners to have face-to-face meetings within a single location, together.
For businesses, this technology is particularly important for saving money, time, and all the inconveniences that go into traveling from place to place for important meetings, business deals, or even job interviews. By expanding a business’s radius to other counties, states, or countries, significant room is created to grow by doing business with a wider audience and attracting talent from a larger pool of candidates for a much lower cost.
Important Factors
- With its ability to connect people in different locations, video conferencing has become a convenient technology for all types of organizations in every corner of the globe.
- Video conferencing’s ability to connect groups of all different sizes has made it the number one technology for job training sessions, classroom meetings, company meetings, one-way webinars, conferences and addressing board members.
- The technological advances in video conferencing have made it a more viable option for rural organizations to grow their business beyond ways previously thought possible.
- Video conferencing has become more commonplace with the ability to chat via smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.
- More widespread broadband infrastructure, fiber optic installation, and 5G cell phone towers mean businesses are able to enjoy better stability and quality of video conferencing.
How Video Conferencing Works
Video conferencing is possible because of the advances in technology over the years and the software-based platforms that providers have developed. In order to work more collaboratively, businesses can utilize these technologies to conduct regular meetings with staff, communicate with shareholders, make important announcements to changes in the company or introduce a new employee. There are a variety of ways video conferencing can be used and endless ways it can benefit any type of organization.
Video Conferencing Competitive Landscape
Zoom Review
As one of the most recognized video conferencing providers on the market, Zoom has quickly evolved into one of the leaders among businesses, classrooms, and family members looking to stay in touch with each other. Zoom especially grew out of the COVID-19 crisis because of the demand for a hip and sleek platform that was easy to use for people of all ages and tech proficiencies.
Features
One of the main reasons Zoom became such a success story was due to their free plan that offers an array of different features that includes 40-minute meetings with up to 100 people per video conference call, and no limits on one-on-one meetings. Zoom also provides a playful variety of features from custom backgrounds to emojis. As with most other conferencing solutions, Zoom’s pricing for their paid plans is based on the number of people you need to host meetings. The number of available features is dependent on a host being present for a meeting.
Pros
- Many useful features
- Easy to install and use
- Free Version available
- 24/7 live support
- One-click join without need for software downloads
- Cloud recording
- 3rd party integrations and a growing suite of complimentary add-on services
Cons
- Security issues
- Lacks real-time document sharing
- Unpredictable video quality
Zoom Pricing
Zoom Recommendation
Questions about Zoom’s vulnerability to security breaches have turned many enterprise customers away, but since they’ve come under fire Zoom has fixed many of those security issues and has survived the criticism. Many users have come to love the platform and enjoy using the recording feature to save and document sessions for future use.
ClickMeeting Review
ClickMeeting has become one of the most popular video conferencing solutions for businesses of all different sizes and has particularly been popular among consultants and teachers for its webinar monetization. By offering statistics about each webinar, ClickMeeting gives its users important numbers to improve upon webinars in the future by showing where attendees are from, their average ratings, and other helpful information.
Features
ClickMeeting’s customizable interface allows users to change almost anything about the backgrounds, logos, colors, and other features in their settings to build a webinar room that is both engaging and unique to each meeting. To keep attendees interested while everyone is waiting for a meeting to start, ClickMeeting’s waiting room also allows the host to create an agenda to keep them informed and ready to start the webinar.
Pros
- Stability of the service
- A ton of great, clever features
- Easy to share information
Cons
- The platform isn’t easy for everyone
- Difficulty adjusting features
- Catered more to webinars than two-way video conferencing
- The sound has been known to drop out
ClickMeeting Pricing
ClickMeeting Recommendation
ClickMeeting’s real benefit comes from the ability to brand any meeting the way you want it to look and feel, which a lot of video conferencing providers don’t have. They’ve also been the go-to solution for webinars for many years, which gives ClickMeeting a dedicated and loyal customer base. With a 30-day free trial available, it may be worth a test to see if it’s the right fit for you.
GoToMeeting Review
As one of the easiest video conferencing services to use, GoToMeeting has become a well-known provider over the years. Odds are if you’ve ever watched a web presentation or been a part of an online demo, then you probably used GoToMeeting, that’s how popular they are.
Features
GoToMeeting has an easy to use interface that helps prevent errors and makes important information obvious. Like Zoom, they offer a free plan with basic features that include up to 50 participants at a time. They also don’t take your credit card number when you sign up for a 14-day free trial with them, which is an attractive move compared to most technology companies out there and makes them very easy to trial.
Pros
- Easy to use interface
- Free plan available
- 60-day refund and no credit card upon sign-up
Cons
- Lacks advanced features
- Webinars are part of a different service
- No polling statistics
- Requires software download
GoToMeeting Pricing
GoToMeeting Recommendation
GoToMeeting, once a powerhouse in the video conferencing solution set, has fallen behind its competitors in recent years, but they’re still a solid option if you’re looking for basic features. However, they lack the advanced capabilities we’re seeing with newer providers. Due to their free trial and 60-day money-back guarantee they may be worth testing but there’s no doubt the competition has caught up.
Microsoft Teams (Formally Skype for Business)
Skype was taken over by Microsoft in 2011 and since then they incorporated a lot of the Microsoft features to make it more user friendly and changed its brand to Microsoft Teams. As opposed to Skype, Microsoft Teams offers a much better atmosphere for video conference calls of up to 250 people, whereas Skype is built for one-on-one video meetings.
Features
Aimed more at business communication, Microsoft Teams has more advanced functionality features compared to Skype. Those features include higher resolution video conferencing calls and HD quality videos, collaboration tools such as whiteboards and polls, and encrypted communication to ensure a high-level of security.
Pros
- User status (available, present, in a meeting, etc.)
- Screen sharing
- Easy instant messaging
- Very easy to use
Cons
- Increased costs with added features
- Known to have weak connections
- Difficult to search for users
Microsoft Teams Pricing
Plans starting at $2.00 per User per Month
Microsoft Teams Recommendation
Overall, Microsoft Teams users are satisfied with the communication service for a number of reasons. The service works great over an array of devices and platforms, with the option to send chat messages to others for quick responses when they’re unavailable to call.
Google Meet Review
Google Meet sometimes gets labeled as a messaging application, but there’s no question that it’s a fully functioning communications app that lets users make calls, send messages, and carry out video conferences with ease. With a free version that works great for small businesses or individuals and paid versions to suit the needs of larger organizations, Google Meet has become a go-to video conferencing option for thousands of companies both large and small.
Features
Google Meet works in sync with Google’s other applications to give its customers a completely integrated video conferencing solution. As an extension and application, it can be used across all devices and allows users to live-stream meetings up to 100,000 users at a time.
Pros
- Simple to use
- Widely adopted platform
- High-performance software
Cons
- Lacks 3rd party integration features
- Gmail account is required
- Functionality problem with large groups
Google Meet Pricing
Google Meet Recommendation
Google Meet branched off from Google Hangouts to become an application more suitable to businesses. With applications like webinars and video conferencing, Google Meet includes similar features to other communication providers such as screen sharing and recording options but lacks features such as whiteboards and polling tools if you’re needs are more advanced.
BlueJeans Review (by Verizon)
If you’re looking for a video conferencing solution with a proven track record, BlueJeans has a history of innovation and dependability. They were the first to connect to Skype Rooms, the first with interactive large events, the first to integrate with Facebook Live and Workplace, and the first cloud platform with Dolby Spatial Audio all while maintaining best in class connections.
Features
BlueJeans platform brings video, audio, and web conferencing together to make online meetings fast to join and simple to use. Their features appeal to business owners and professionals because they include high-definition video, great Dolby Vision sound, encrypted conference calls, and they’re compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS/iPadOS, and Android.
Pros
- Downloading and installing the app is simple and quick
- Broadcast meeting to Facebook Live
- Supports browser, desktop, and mobile platforms
Cons
- No option to blur the background
- Lacks webinar features
- Lags during screen sharing sessions
BlueJeans Pricing
BlueJeans Recommendation
Even after the novel coronavirus forced many people to work from home, the spike in the number of users on the BlueJeans network didn’t affect their quality of service. Their pricing plans are also fairly affordable compared to other video conferencing providers. The one downside to their service that users have experienced is a bit of a slowdown during screen sharing and while using the whiteboard feature, but for most users that might not be a noticeable issue or problem. Overall, their low cost and advanced video conferencing features make BlueJeans a viable option for SMBs.
I’ve heard Zoom has security issues, is this still an problem and something I should be concerned about?