During this pandemic, some of us have had to suffer the use of video conferencing, whether it’s for work or personal. When I say suffer, I mean things like technical or user error, asking questions like, “Can you hear me? Is this thing on?” or awkward transitions and interruptions. For the most part, though, video conferencing has been a game changer and is so crucial for us to make connections, especially now.
Like some of you, I’ve been exposed to many of them. Here are some superlatives, based solely on my experiences:
Most Used and Most User Friendly: Zoom
Zoom is widely used, especially for personal use, and by schools and small organizations. Personally, I use Zoom all the time. I use it to teach yoga, to attend workshops, trainings, and meetings, and to connect with pals, both local and distant. Outside of Zoom’s security issues (meetings getting hacked, etc.), it is very user-friendly.
Most Surprising in a Good Way: Amazon Chime
Never heard of Amazon Chime? Me either… until a few months ago. I was just impressed by how well it worked. Nothing super fancy – it’s pretty straight-forward.
Receives the “Get Your Act Together, Already” Award: WebEx
WebEx has been around for a long time, and still, I can’t use my internal mic on my laptop due to feedback on the other end. So then I have to call in, which takes a while because you have to put in a very long meeting number. It’s awkward as it leaves folks waiting. Get your act together, WebEx!
Most Surprising in a Bad Way: Google Meet
In my opinion, it’s not as user-friendly as I’d expect, especially because this is a product of Google. Good news is that it’s free.
Receives the “You’re Getting There” Award: Microsoft Teams
I almost forgot: Teams! It’s obvious that Microsoft is working hard to make Teams better (some of us miss Skype) as there are updates to the software pretty frequently. Teams is mostly used at work, and has this weird feature (I presume to keep things spicy):
Other Honorable Mention: GoToMeeting
Happy web conferencing! It’ll be around for a while!