Zoom

At VPNRanks, we were forced to work from home 2 months ago due to the rise of this COVID pandemic going on.

We have been staying connected for 9 hours through Zoom. The productivity has surely been affected but we have been making sure that it stays intact and doesn't drop significantly by being constantly in contact to keep the environment just like the offices.   

We have also been using tools like VPNs and VPS to ensure maximum security while connecting to our work servers from home. Your home systems may not be secure and since the company data is critical and confidential, allowing you to work from home poses a lot of risks. A VPN takes care of that problem.

A dedicated IP is also required to white list users to access the company domains and systems remotely. So it is required to make sure that the VPN you choose offers a dedicated IP.

As I am working from home for almost 100 days and using one so I would like to put in my two pennies worth.

At How to stream to manage the remote workforce is Zoom. There are plenty of benefits it offers which made our company use it to create a virtual office environment. Some of its pros are:

1. It provides quality video and audio, even screen sharing quality is excellent

2. It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to understand and use 

3. It offers a variety of meeting settings making it the best tool for daily teleconferencing activities

4. It is compatible with different operating systems like Windows and Android

5. Scheduling a meeting is quite easy

Its Cons are as follows:

1. Customer support could be more advanced(Needs improvement)

2. High throughput(Internet Speed) is required for a stable connection

3. Cybersecurity is required to be bolstered(Recent Zoom Bombers matter that took place in March)

We are a completely remote company (Prime Plus Mortgages) and we use zoom. 

It's great for video meetings and presentation - cons privacy and have to have professional accounts to invite in advance.

At Credit Repair Companies, we use Zoom. Zoom is experiencing a boom. There's a reason this business is on fleek right now and that becauses it’s not just all bells and whistles, it’s the best web conferencing software we’ve ever used by a country mile.

 It’s incomparable to all the others.

 Even the basic level for Zoom is comprehensive enough for 99% of all businesses, as it offers up 100 participants -  at the same time - for Free! Oh, it's limited to 45 mins per meeting - but honestly if your meetings are longer than that you’ve got bigger fish to fry.

 But, if you do need more meeting time, everyone can just set up another meeting after 45 mins and do it all again. 

 The screen sharing is common among most webinar software but where it truly stands out is the breakout room, this stops the main meeting getting sidetracked where people can split off into hubs to discuss other matters - excellent for department issues which don’t concern the rest of the company.

 A lot less buffering than other software I used, which is usually the achilles heel of all webinar software, bar this one. It seems like they’ve done their research and found out what the biggest issue is and solved it before launching their product.

 It’s also consistent across devices, mobile phone - laptop - desktop - none of them suffers in quality, you can’t tell the difference, unlike most webinar software.

I'm the CEO of an online business and we've recently transitioned all employees to remote work contracts.

Although we've always made use of web conferencing, our communications have increased due to the pandemic, and with our move to fully remote work.

At Home Grounds, Our number one choice for web conferences was - and still is - Zoom.

They've done a remarkable job of keeping up with the demand in this crisis.

Here's what we like:

1. It's reliable.

The audio and video is clear and undistorted, and it's stable even when there's lower bandwidth.

2. It offers a recording function

We've set up a recurring team meeting and we record the call for those who can't attend. This allows everyone to keep up with company announcements and discussions on our workflow.

2. Screen sharing

With the permission of the meeting host, any attendee can share their screen. This allows us to "show" rather than "tell" when we're explaining new procedures or running a training session.

3. There's a built-in whiteboard

The built in whiteboard on Zoom is great for creating marketing funnels or laying out campaign ideas. This encourages team participation as well as saving time by having our designers and writers cooperating in real time.

4. Virtual conferences

Many events and conferences have been cancelled and postponed, but Zoom makes it possible to hold web summits of almost any size. Speakers present to a live audience and the control options let the host permit feedback and input from attendees.

5. It's simple to use

The Zoom interface is very intuitive and the controls are easy to navigate. Whether you're the host or attendee, it's simple to connect and use the platform.

What could be improved:

1. Better tools for editing a recorded video.

This would be useful when repurposing the video for a different audience. Any sensitive information or unnecessary content could be removed, and additional tools would provide a more "polished" result.

2. Longer meeting times on the free plan

While not an issue for our business, it would be great if Zoom extended the current 40 minute time limit to 60 or 90 minutes. I believe that many educational institutions and charitable organisations would appreciate the increased time for their teaching, meeting, and planning sessions.

One final thought:

Our email communications have diminished due to our weekly Zoom check-ins because it's far easier to ask a quick question on these calls and receive immediate feedback.

Our firm(ToppCasinoBonus) uses Zoom for web conferences.. While working from home remotely, this tool keeps us connected with our remote employees. It is an easy video conferencing tool that allows video interactions.

With Zoom, you can schedule meetings, theme discussions, host larger conferences, and webinars. Each team member can attend Zoom meetings with their meeting ID and can discuss their weekly targets to achieve their planned goals.

The best feature is that it allows up to 100 participants to join the meeting, and you can also share screens, record, and save the meetings.

Here are some pros and cons of Zoom software:

Pros:

Video Calling - Minimum buffer, automatic adjustment, and stable video conferencing.

Screen Sharing - Excellent screen sharing quality. Easy to use, and you can choose a specific window or a monitor to share.

Conference Calls - Easy to bring in up to 100 users without any loss in quality.

Cons:

Recording Editing - Can use some more robust tools for editing a recorded video/audio before export.

Air Time Recording - Does not automatically cut out muted segments with only one participant in recordings.

At Hollingsworth, we use Zoom as our web conference software. 

Pros:

Inexpensive - it's only $15 per account per month.

Easy to invite people to meetings.

It allows you to record important meetings.

Cons: 

When sharing screen, I am unable to view all attendees in the conference in gallery view. I would have to toggle between screens.

Take a bit of time to load (oftentimes it takes me 3 minutes to login).

There is a lot to improve upon.

We use the internet all day at highspeedinternet.com and my entire team has been working from home since March so staying connected is crucial to keeping production running smoothly and ensuring that we’re publishing good work and giving each other necessary feedback on a regular basis. 

We were using Zoom before the pandemic hit, mostly to let people call-in to meetings if they were out of the office and couldn’t attend in person. But since March we’ve been using it even more and it’s become integral to our communications. We have a meeting every Monday morning where the whole team (10+ people including designers, SEO specialists, writers, researchers, and managers) gathers on Zoom to talk about what we’re doing this week and strategize for steps forward. We also regularly meet on Zoom to have 1:1 meetings and even to just hang out and check in with each other and keep our spirits up. 

It’s free, easy to use, and has a lot of features that make it useful for larger group meetings. I like that you can get so many people on a single call and that you can record each call for posterity and later reference. There’s some fun little things about it too, like how you can post emojis on your screen during meetings and change your background. I even put together a comprehensive Zoom guide for our site. 

The drawbacks are that Zoom has some security issues I’ve been reading about—though I haven’t experienced any issues myself. I wish there was a way to adjust lighting and contrast within the Zoom app because I find that I often have to move to a completely new location in my home office just to get a clear picture of myself with good lighting for meetings. I also am not the biggest fan of the virtual background setting. It’s fun but not really useful for me at the end of the day because you need a solid-colored background at home for it to actually work… otherwise the virtual background gets superimposed over your face or your shirt and blends together with everything else.