←back to thread

1597 points seapunk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.287s | source
Show context
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.

replies(11): >>22703525 #>>22703545 #>>22703555 #>>22703745 #>>22703751 #>>22703998 #>>22704074 #>>22704077 #>>22704281 #>>22704744 #>>22705384 #
panpanna ◴[] No.22703545[source]
> It works really well.

Does it?

Asking because I just left a zoom meeting with horrible sound quality and extremely bad video quality. Why would anyone prefer that to Teams is beyond me.

Edit: interesting this is _heavily_ downvoted. Can't a person have a bad experience and tell HN about it?

replies(3): >>22703578 #>>22703587 #>>22703873 #
meritt ◴[] No.22703587[source]
I have about a year of near daily anecdotal evidence to the contrary. So, in my experience, yes it works extremely well. I'm not saying it's better than Teams at all, I've never used that, and it looks pretty awesome from their marketing page. Microsoft has really stepped up their software quality game recently.

I can say Zoom is way the hell better than: Slack/Screenhero, TeamViewer, join.me, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Skype, Google Hangouts, BlueJeans, ugh the list goes on over the past years.

replies(2): >>22703742 #>>22704758 #
panpanna ◴[] No.22703742[source]
But your flawless experience does not help me.

I had a horrible meeting today (not the first time, but today was particularly bad).

In fact, I recorded part of it with my phone and tomorrow I Will have a chat with our IT people to ask people to avoid using zoom.

replies(3): >>22704005 #>>22704030 #>>22705251 #
1. thoraway1010 ◴[] No.22705251[source]
haha - if you agree to do technical support for all the people fumbling around with other clients - they MIGHT say yes.

One reason zoom is POPULAR with the IT folks - less tech support / help desk stuff. Test my audio is the biggest tip for folks stuck.