The growing popularity of video calling apps around the world has nothing but shown a spurt. People everywhere are using it for work, for education, or simply staying connected with their near and dear ones.
Speaking of video calling apps for a more formal outlook, the first name that pops up in our head is Zoom. We have covered countless articles entailing the growing traffic in the platform.
A strong competitor has now made itself more visible to Zoom, Google.
Google Meet Comes to Sweep Zoom
Google has officially rolled out the Google Meet for everyone. Earlier on April 29, it had announced that they will make the premium app free for everyone with a Gmail account.
Google Meet now allows everyone to video chat with up to 100 people for free. It is clearly planning to take on Zoom that has been offering the same functionality and whose popularity is skyrocketing, especially during this time when the world is advised to stay in homes and work from there.
Google has separately added advanced features like support for up to 250 participants, live streaming, and recording for all G Suite users and it is free for them until Sept 30.
Google Meet now Free for Anyone with a Google Account
Yes, you read it right! Anybody with a Google account can now video call with up to 100 people simultaneously and without any time limits using Google Meet.
Until now, only ‘premium’ G Suite customers were allowed to have access to this feature by Google, that is to access Meet video calls.
Now, anyone with a Google account can enrol in a video call supporting 100 people for as long as they want, until September 30, after which they’ll be allowed to conduct ‘free’ Meet video calls only for 60 minutes.
Some Advanced Feature by Google Meet
Google Meet has some advanced features like scheduling and sharing screen, real-time captions, and layouts that you can choose as per your requirement, an expanded tiled view—that gives a better view of the people connected through the app.
Google has also been making Google Meet more accessible by adding dedicated tabs for start and join meetings directly into Gmail.
Javier Soltero Vice President & GM, G Suite said in a blog post that the team has re-engineered Google Meet, originally built for secure business meetings, to make it free and available to all.
He has stated that after making Meet’s advanced features free for all G Suite and G Suite for Education users in March, they have seen daily usage grow by 30x, with Meet hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings daily.
Google Meet is available for free on the web at meet.google.com and via mobile apps for iOS or Android. Anyone who has a Gmail account can sign in at meet.google.com to activate their Meet account. For G-Suite users, they’ll have to sign in to their G-suite account before starting a call.
Here is a very good resource on how to start using Google Meet.