From an astonishing boom from Zoom; to what is widely believed to be Zuckerberg and his apps prodding at if Zoom can really hold out as the “Z-factor” to video-conferencing; Google making its premium video-conferencing platform free and Spotify and Apple enabling direct methods for fund raising during the COVID-19 pandemic, here’s a recap of major app updates and developments for the month of April.
Zoom
In a blog post published on the 1st of April, 2020 by the founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, Zoom experienced “an overnight ballooned usage” from approximately 10 million daily meeting participants (both free and paid) as of the end of December last year, to more than 200 million daily meeting participants (both free and paid) in March, this year.
This it achieved, despite weighty security concerns, including issues of “Zoombombing. Thereby leading to an address to managing this, as well as a plan of action that includes: updates in privacy policy, weekly webinars, establishing a 90-day security plan progress report and robust security announcements, with the release of zoom 5.0.
Check out: 7 tips on how to use Zoom like a pro.
Google Meet
Starting off with a re-branding confirmation from Hangouts Meet to simply Google Meet, which included a re-branding in privacy measures, Google Cloud further announced, its decision to make its premium video-conferencing platform, Google Meet, free for everyone, everywhere. Addressing the need to expand availability to more people, as well as a secure and reliable video-conferencing solution, it will be available to G Suite’s business and education users, starting in early May.
Facebook
With more than 700 million accounts between WhatsApp and Messenger participating in calls everyday, Facebook has introduced video chatting platform, Messenger rooms. The feature which is expected to accommodate up to 50 people with no time limit will also allow you create a room right from Messenger or Facebook, and invite anyone to join your video call, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. With hopes of ways to create rooms from Instagram Direct, WhatsApp and Portal, too.
It also announced its decision to bring back Live With and the plan to add the ability to for pages to charge for access to events with Live videos on Facebook – from online performances to classes to professional conferences.
WhatsApp
Facebook has announced plans to expand group voice and video calls with up to eight people on WhatsApp [from presently 4], while being secured with end-to-end encryption, so no one else can view or listen to your private conversation.
Instagram
Facebook announced that it will be rolling out access to DMs on the web to everyone globally, on Friday, April 10th, 2020.
Reports also indicate that this experience will essentially be the same through the browser as it is on mobile, with options to: create new groups, start new conversations or continue old ones, either from the DM screen or a profile page; double-tap to like a message; share photos from your computer; see the total number of unread messages you have and watch lives on your computer.
Although, limitations may still exist on posting new photos to your feed or story, as this is still limited to the mobile apps for now.
IGTV
There are also on-going plans to be able to save your videos to IGTV so they stick around longer than the 24-hour limit in Stories and are easier for others to find.
Twitter
While we didn’t get any update on an edit button this month, Twitter has updated its policies on COVID-19 to remove tweets that may lead people to engage in harmful activity. Twitter says it has also removed over 2,230 tweets with misleading content since updating policies regarding COVID-19 content in March.
Spotify
While music has done a great deal of serving as a relaxant or form of entertainment in easing the effect of the lockdown during this pandemic, many whose sources of livelihood are dependent on the art and craft of it, would need support.
Spotify has introduced a fundraising feature that it hopes would help artists affected by the lockdown. In a blog post announcing this initiative, “this feature enables artists who are interested in raising money to support themselves, their bands, or their crews, to get the word out to their fans on their Spotify artist profiles,”.