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1597 points seapunk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.228s | source
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meritt ◴[] No.22703456[source]
It works really well.

One that has been a total game changer for my company is when I'm hosting a conference call, I can simply "Invite by Phone" my participants. They get a phone call, are prompted to "Press 1 to enter the conference", and boom they're in. It's drastically reduced people fumbling around with phone numbers + participant codes, ending up in the wrong meeting, or getting stuck in some unnecessary software install loop. If someone is more than two minutes late, they're getting a phone call that brings them instantly into the meeting.

Also a really nice feature, again for phone conferences, is when people dial-in I see their phone number handle in the UI. But during the call as they introduce themselves or I look up their number, I can then rename their user to something recognizable. Now if I'm on a call with 5 people at another firm, I appear really impressive because I know who each person is by their name. When someone is speaking on the conference call, their icon lights up. If someone has a ton of background noise I can easily mute them.

Zoom Phone (addl paid feature) is awesome too. Virtual phone numbers, IVR, call routing, busy hours, I can instantly turn a 1:1 conversation into a zoom meeting that other people can join, etc. Zoom Phone works on my iphone like a regular dialer, and I can place/receive fully digital calls on it (pretty similar to how Google Voice works), so it doesn't matter if I have actual cell service.

I've never used Microsoft Teams, and does look really snazzy, but Zoom is an absolute joy to use compared to every single other conferencing software I have ever used. The video chat and screensharing is fast and responsive and just works exactly like you would expect it to.

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hpcjoe ◴[] No.22703751[source]
Having used zoom, teams, skype for business, webex, and many others ... zoom is the only one of these which just works. I'm on the con calls typically 5+ hours a day. Yes, it is soul crushing.

Teams sorta works, though it often messes up with devices. Headsets and speakers (I've got a Jabra speak 710). Often times it handles contention badly.

Skype ... yeah. The less said the better.

Webex. Must be marketing for Zoom and others, given how unreservedly horrible the UX is.

I've also used uberconference some years ago. Almost as good as zoom.

I am looking at containerized ways to run zoom to restrict its access to my system, but it is the best IMO, by far.

[edit] I should note that I've also used Viber a bit. Less now though. Mostly for calling home from overseas. Not great for conferencing though.

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1. fiftyfifty ◴[] No.22704235[source]
Teams is way better than Skype, provided everyone is on a computer.