I love FaceTime for my personal life, connecting with family and friends, but it’s not a business application that you’ll find yourself using. You can chat one to one or do a group chat with up to 33 people. It’s the inbuilt app on your Apple devices that allows you to easily call another Apple device via phone or video. If you live in the Apple universe (like I do) you may already be familiar with FaceTime. While Skype say they have removed the need for participants to have installed the app prior to using it, I’ve had a number of small businesspeople find Skype difficult to use and navigate. It also tends to be a little more convoluted to get into the platform and connect with people. The call quality overall tends not to be as good as what you’ll get with Zoom, in part I believe this is due to the additional security Skype has built into the platform.
My main issue with Skype is that it can be a little ‘glitchy’. If you’re looking for webinar-style features, you’ll need to pay for ‘Skype for Business’ once there you can accommodate up to 250 participants. Skype offers everything that Zoom does, and is perfect if you live in the Microsoft universe. Owned by Microsoft, Skype is the preferred means of communication for Government and large corporate organisations, primarily because they are already operating within the Microsoft operating system and because of the inbuilt security features Skype offers. Skype was one of the really early players in the video conferencing market, coming out in 2003. I rate Zoom as the top video conferencing performer for small business owners.
#ZOOM VS GOOGLE HANGOUTS INSTALL#
These gaps have (mostly) been plugged now and, overall, it’s the perfect video conferencing tool to use with people who aren’t terribly tech savvy as there is nothing to install or do prior to connecting. There were some concerns during COVID around Zoom’s security. You can also opt for the webinar functionality if that’s something of interest to your business. With the paid version you’re able to ‘live stream’ to your Facebook or YouTube account (super handy if you wanted to interview someone as an example), and you can begin to get some reporting functionality, like meeting registrations. Once you find yourself with a paid account, you no longer have time restrictions on group calls (well, as long as your meetings are less than 24 hours, that is). With Zoom you or your participants can share their desktop screen (handy for walking through demonstrations or fault finding) and you can record the conversation, perfect for training calls.Ī number of businesses, myself included, have been using a paid version of Zoom for years to allow additional functionality. You aren’t limited by the number of meetings you can schedule each month, and, for the most part, the quality of the calls on Zoom is excellent (this of course depends on participants’ internet speeds at their end).
#ZOOM VS GOOGLE HANGOUTS FREE#
You could meet with another person in a virtual space while maintaining as much similarity as a face-to-face meeting as possible.Īs a free platform you can schedule one-to-one conversations with people with no time limit, or you can schedule a group call with up to 100 participants for a 40-minute timeframe. It was created as a video communication platform. The platform itself has been around since 2011. Let’s take a look at each of the major platforms, share a little of their strengths and weaknesses and give you enough information for you to go forth and find the best solution to use in your business moving forward.Īs I just mentioned, Zoom certainly got the most press during COVID. Essentially all the questions were around security and why one platform was better than another.
Many people messaged me during this time asking questions about Skype (now known as Microsoft Teams) and Google Meet (formerly known as Google Hangouts). It wasn’t without its glitches as many of us adopted this new way of doing business, but, it certainly was the most flexible in assisting us to easily stay connected. The platform that seemed to get the most noise during the COVID crisis was without a doubt Zoom. No more lost time commuting between meetings, rather a smooth day of leaping from one meeting to another using one of the many virtual platforms available. If COVID has taught us anything in business it’s that the ability to continue to work virtually was not only possible, but a number of our clients and staff actually preferred it. A large part of getting organized in your business and your life is being willing to embrace different ways of communicating with your clients, your suppliers, even your family.
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