Zoom is one of the most popular videos conferencing tools available as of now. Zoom Video Communications Inc develops it. This can be considered as a leading communications technology company based in the United States. The headquarters of the company is located in California. The company offers online chat services and video-telephony services for people in need. All these services are offered through the peer to peer platform based on the cloud. The platform can be used for a variety of purposes. Telecommuting, teleconferencing, social relations, and distance education are some of the offered facilities through the platform as of now.
Zoom’s primary business strategy is to provide a quick and hassle-free platform to get the teleconferencing requirements catered. It is being offered while minimizing computational expenses.
History of Zoom
Zoom was discovered by Eric Yuan, a former executive and an engineer who worked along with Cisco WebEx. He launched the platform back in the year 2011. However, the official software was launched in the year 2013. Along with the launch, Zoom was able to experience aggressive revenue growth. This was mainly due to the user-friendliness associated with the platform. People who wanted to access the services offered by Zoom could do it with ease. It was able to become a $1 billion worthy company by the year 2017. This is where people started calling it a unicorn. It could finally transform itself into a profitable company by the year 2019.
Zoom’s founder had to struggle for a duration of 8 long years to transform the platform into a profitable one. Back in the year 2011, he left Cisco WebEx along with 40 other engineers. The main objective of them was to launch a new company. This new company was initially named Saasbee. However, they had to face a large number of challenges with finding investors back in the day. That’s because the video telephony market was fully saturated by that time.
However, the company could get some seed money from Subrah Iyar, who was the founder of WebEx. The team used that funding carefully to launch their project. Back in the year 2012, the company officially changed its name to Zoom. Along with that, Zoom Beta was released as well. It had the ability to host video conferences by accommodating up to 15 individuals at a time. Sanford University was the very first customer of Zoom.
During the first few months of 2020, Zoom could experience exponential growth. That’s mainly due to the quarantine measures that were implemented around the world along with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Features of Zoom platform
Zoom is now positioned as one of the leading video conferencing solutions available for people to consider. The impressive features offered along with Zoom have contributed heavily towards the above-mentioned fact. Following are the most prominent features that can be found in Zoom and that are responsible for transforming Zoom into the next level video teleconferencing tool.
- Virtual backgrounds
The ability to add virtual backgrounds is one of the most interesting features that are available in Zoom. You will be able to discover a large number of backgrounds. A user just needs to go through the list of backgrounds and pick the best one out of them. This is one of the best methods available to hide the clutter and eliminate distractions. Moreover, these backgrounds can be used to highlight a specific brand, as well.
- Calendar integration
Zoom is an excellent tool available for busy professionals who are packed with meetings. They can integrate Zoom with the calendar. Then they can make sure that they don’t miss out on any of the meetings. Moreover, it can provide excellent overall assistance with scheduling meetings and hosting them. All the Zoom meeting details can be integrated into the calendar invitation that is being sent out.
- Waiting rooms
The waiting room feature is another excellent option available in Zoom. It is possible to use this feature and track who comes into the meetings. All the people who come to the meeting can be placed in the waiting room. Then it is possible to get the attendees in based on the requirement. This feature can benefit a lot when offering online consultation sessions or when conducting online interviews. It is possible to send out messages to all the people in the waiting room.
- Multi-share
Zoom is a tool that provides much-needed support and assistance to people with real-time collaboration. That’s because it provides multiple people the ability to share their screens without having to go through any difficulties. If a user has dual monitors, it is even possible to share both monitors side by side. This feature has helped Zoom to position itself as one of the most desirable video communication platforms available to consider.
- Personal meeting rooms
Personal meeting rooms of Zoom can provide a convenient experience to anyone who wishes to have meetings. For all the scheduled meetings, a personal meeting ID is generated. This personal meeting ID will reserve a virtual meeting room. It is possible to customize the personal meeting ID and other related settings in the meeting room. It is also possible to deliver a better service, which can cater to all the needs.
- Touch up my appearance
If a person has turned on the camera with bad lighting, it is possible to use this feature and touch up the appearance. Likewise, it can help a person look good while presenting on Zoom without facing any major difficulties. It can also provide a soft focus to the entire screen as well. It can help anyone to look polished and professional. This can be done without facing any preparation times at all.
Link – https://zoom.us/about