Video Conferencing That Doesn't Suck

Video conferencing has come a long way since the days when state-of-the-art webcams were only capable of delivering a picture with an anemic resolution. And that wasn’t so long ago. We’re talking about progress that has been made over two decades. But once you put that all aside, the state of video meetings is still a resounding “meh.” We’ll be the first to admit it: Video conferencing can suck. That’s exactly why we got into this business in the first place. We do better, and then we see what we can do even better, and then we do just that. Zoom was developed to answer the question: Can video conferencing suck-less, or perhaps even totally un-suck? We found the answer to this question is a resounding yes, but let’s explore some of the reasons why video conferencing has struggled so much, and how we’ve solved for the issues plaguing it.

“A face-to-face meeting, where two people or more are physically present, is always better than a video encounter,” says your average Joe. Well, hold up there Joe, you have no idea what’s out there, do you? The reason why you’re complaining that video meetings can’t match face-to-face encounters is because what you’ve been using until now has flimsy, unreliable video quality. Most people who have this complaint, when asked what’s wrong with video meetings, will answer with the following: “It freezes, there are times when people are disconnected randomly, and the video quality in general is abysmal.” With Zoom, we worked the problem and came up with a solution to allow the highest number of pixels in the most efficient manner possible. This results in a bandwidth-light product that provides a very crisp picture quality without the connection issues. And, lo and behold, this also cuts down on drop-outs and jittering!

So, you’re searching for a video chat solution that doesn’t present a cubist rendition of every participant. The problem is that every time you find something higher quality, you end up with an interface that rivals a 747’s cockpit control panel. Rather than do a pre-flight check every time you have a meeting, you’d like something that simply works. In your search, you will find solutions that have a more satisfying level of simplicity in their interfaces, but the video quality makes you feel like you’re looking at microfilm and they lack even basic features like annotation and recording. While developing Zoom, we took all of these scenarios into consideration, creating software that not only exposes you to the most professional video experience out there, but also sports an interface that works with you and gets out of your way when you don’t need it.

A typical video conference requires that all of the participants have some sort of authentication before joining the meeting. This means that everyone is going to have to make some sort of account on the service. As most of us have experienced at one time or another, this is typically disjointed and you end up with a long waiting period for everyone to work out the technical kinks, download the correct software and find the correct pass codes. Adding one more account to an already endless myriad just to join one conference might just be the last straw for your attendees, whether they be colleagues, partners, vendors, or customers. We understand that frustration and built Zoom so that only the meeting host needs to establish an account.

It’s a common (and relatively well-founded) belief that if you want meetings with crisp image quality and excellent connection stability, the cash necessary to pay for such a thing could only be carried by a forklift. Today’s bandwidth prices are ridiculously low. There’s no excuse for a video service to continue costing heavy users thousands of dollars per month. However, the traditionally higher quality video out there is also provided by companies that stick to antiquated pricing models. Zoom’s pricing is well, modern and a lot more affordable. We’ve got fixed (aka predictable) monthly pricing starting at $15.99 for unlimited minutes and meetings with up to 50 participants. Seeing is believing -- we could talk all day long about Zoom differentiation but it really comes down to getting hands-on and seeing for yourself. Schedule a Live Demo, it's quick, easy, and we smile a lot -- a friendly product specialist is ready when you are!