The Best Online Meeting Apps

Best Online Meeting Apps for video conferencing

The worldwide lockdown has forced all of us to start working online, join virtual meetings, teach or study online and do business on new platforms. Even the greatest tech dummies are figuring it out along the way.

There are, however, much more to the top online meeting rooms than most of us are aware of. Christopher Riley, CEO of The Notebook Company, enlightens us.

WhatsApp is first on the list since it is the easiest way to quickly get up to 8 people together for a talk,” says Riley. If you haven’t noticed yet, the App gives you the option of adding up to 8 people on call or video call at the same time. Quick, easy and very affordable.

People used to think that WhatsApp was off limits for business, but their views quickly changed over the past few years as WhatsApp upgraded its video call limits in the App new updates.

Google Meet

In May 2020 Google announced that their meeting App (a new version of Hangouts) will be free for all, until 31 September, where after you will have to install Gsuite to get access to it. Google Meet is easy to navigate, but it has a few other great features

Live captions is probably the top built-in feature which distinguishes Meet from all other platforms. “At the bottom of the screen you can activate live captions. This is great if there are problems with bad connectivity or if your speakers don’t work well, or even if you have a hearing impairment,” says Riley.

Captions are only available in English currently, but it is quite handy if you are not a native speaker and must follow along during a meeting.

“What is also great about Meet is the ability to decrease video quality to support your bandwidth during video conferencing.” Riley explains all you have to do, is to click on the three-dot menu at the bottom right corner, click on video tab and decrease your video quality.

“You can also decrease the video quality of others on the video conference. Great for getting rid of stalls and stuttering video streaming,” he says.

Another really nice feature is that you can enter a meeting room in more ways than one - You can use Meeting link, a Meeting code, or you can enter without any internet. You just call the meeting number and enter the pin, from wherever you are. Currently this feature is supported in around 40 countries, but it will probably increase in the near future.

Meet supports gatherings of up to 100 people for any amount of time, but after September this year it may decide to restrict meeting times to 60 minutes.

Zoom

“Zoom has exploded into public use,” says Riley. And they had their fair share of challenges, mostly with security issues. People from all over the world happened into meetings with total strangers lately.

Other than that, Riley feels that Zoom has greatly outdone some tech giants who were caught with their pants down. “Zoom offers what most others offer – screen share, up to 100 people in conference, background changes etc.

I like the fact that you can raise your hand instead of raising your voice, and it’s live polls are easy to set up for voting, right here, and right now.” Most people have also discovered that after the 40 minutes meeting time limit you can enter the same meeting with the same link.

“We wouldn’t know if this is a special feature for special times or if it is a glitch that’s made them many more fans,” jokes Riley.

On that note, Riley shares some sage advice for steering clear of ‘meeting room embarrassment’. “Wear your pants, don’t ever take your device to the bathroom with you and check your background for dirty dishes, washing or pets doing nasty things.”

These are the best meeting Apps you can find, as they have gained lots of popularity over the years and also proven to be reliable and secure than other online meeting Apps and platform.

I hope you find the best online meeting apps that suits your business, online teaching or virtual classes and other use you might need a good virtual meeting app or platform for video conferencing, but if you feel we are missing out on some top online meeting apps you can drop them in the comment box below, so we can review these apps and add them to the list of top online meeting apps and platform.

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