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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Zoom into the new world of remote collaboration While a worldwide pandemic may have started the Zoom revolution, the convenience of remote meetings is here to stay. Zoom For Dummies takes you from creating meetings on the platform to running global webinars. Along the way you'll learn how to expand your remote collaboration options, record meetings for future review, and even make scheduling a meeting through your other apps a one-click process. Take in all the advice or zoom to the info you need - it's all there! * Discover how to set up meetings * Share screens and files * Keep your meetings secure * Add Zoom hardware to your office * Get tips for using Zoom as a social tool Award-winning author Phil Simon takes you beyond setting up and sharing links for meetings to show how Zoom can transform your organization and the way you work.
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Zoom For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941202
ISBN 978-1-119-74214-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-74216-6 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-74215-9 (epub)
Zoom For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Zoom For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Thank You
Part 1: Staying Connected with Zoom
Chapter 1: Communicating and Collaborating Better with Zoom
Introducing Zoom
Reaping the Benefits of Zoom’s Tools
Chapter 2: Getting to Know Zoom’s Suite of Communication Tools
Zoom’s Core Services
Ready to Go
Some Assembly Required
Part 2: Communicating and Collaborating in Zoom
Chapter 3: Setting Up Zoom
Taking Your First Steps
Reviewing Zoom Account Management
Discussing the Importance of Zoom Roles
Chapter 4: Connecting with Others via Zoom Meetings
Getting Started with Zoom Meetings
Hosting Zoom Meetings
Performing Mid-Meeting Actions
Putting a Bow on Your Meeting
Chapter 5: Getting to Know the Other Side of Zoom Meetings & Chat
Managing Your Zoom Contacts
Understanding User Status in Zoom
Chatting in Zoom
Searching in Zoom
Part 3: Becoming a Zoom Power User
Chapter 6: Getting Even More Out of Meetings & Chat
Managing Users via IM Groups
Exploring Additional Options and Features in Meetings & Chat
Running Reports in Zoom
Chapter 7: Enhancing Zoom with Third-Party Apps
Understanding the Rationale behind Third-Party Apps
Introducing the Zoom App Marketplace
Managing Your Zoom Apps
Recommending a Few Useful Zoom Apps
Treading Lightly with Apps
Chapter 8: Connecting with the Masses through Webinars
Taking Your First Steps
Running Your Webinar
Concluding Your Webinar
Part 4: Deploying Zoom in the Organization
Chapter 9: Protecting Your Communications in Zoom
Putting Zoom’s Challenges into Proper Context
Gauging Zoom’s Response
Configuring Zoom for Maximum Privacy and Security
Looking toward the Future
Chapter 10: Taking Group Meetings to the Next Level with Zoom Rooms
Revisiting the Early Days of Immersive-Telepresence Technology
Introducing Zoom Rooms
Setting Up Your Zoom Room
Chapter 11: Making Calls with Zoom Phone
Getting Started with Zoom Phone
Reviewing the Basic Features of Zoom Phone
Chapter 12: Getting Everyone to Zoom Together
Understanding the Relative Ease of Zoom Adoption
Applying Different Types of Techniques
Chapter 13: Zooming toward the Future
Cutting-Edge Technologies
Voice
Other Developments and Enhancements
Part 5: The Part of Tens
Chapter 14: Ten Great Zoom Tips
Try Before You Buy
Consider Upgrading Your Firm’s Existing Zoom Plan
Take Security Seriously
Keep Zoom Updated
Create a Personal Zoom Account
Explore Zoom’s Advanced Features
Measure Twice and Cut Once
Develop a Contingency Plan for Important Meetings
Expect Some Resistance to Zoom at Mature Firms
Avoid Zoom Fatigue
Chapter 15: Ten Common Myths about Zoom
Zoom Is No Different than Legacy Videoconferencing Tools
Zoom Is Fundamentally Insecure
Zoom’s Customers Use the Tools in a Uniform Way
Zoom Ensures Flawless Business Communication
Zoom Decimates the Need for In-Person Communication
Zoom Eliminates the Need for Email
You Can’t Overuse Zoom
Zoom Is Too Expensive for Our Company
Zoom Won’t Integrate with Our Key Enterprise Technologies
Our Workers Don’t Need a Tool like Zoom
Only Hipsters at Tech-Savvy Startups Use Zoom
Chapter 16: Top Ten or So Zoom Resources
Resources for Everyday Users
Resources for Software Developers
Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Socialize via Zoom
Cooking and Eating Meals
Visiting Sick Friends and Family Members
Dating
Sharing a Few Drinks over Happy Hour
Playing Brick-and-Mortar Games
Playing Video Games
Watching Movies and TV Shows
Performing Stand-Up Comedy
Staying Fit
Holding Miscellaneous Parties
Index
About the Author
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
TABLE 1-1 Mainstream Videoconferencing Tools
Chapter 2
TABLE 2-1 Zoom Webinar Add-On Pricing Information
TABLE 2-2 Zoom Phone Options
Chapter 4
TABLE 4-1 Zoom In-Meeting Menu Icons
TABLE 4-2 Zoom’s Waiting Room Options for Meeting Hosts
TABLE 4-3 Meeting Participant Actions
TABLE 4-4 Zoom Annotation Options
TABLE 4-5 Additional Meeting Options for Hosts
Chapter 5
TABLE 5-1 Meetings & Chat Contact Actions
TABLE 5-2 Meetings & Chat Status Icons
TABLE 5-3 Rich-Text Message Formatting Options in Meetings & Chat
TABLE 5-4 Zoom Message-Specific Actions
Chapter 6
TABLE 6-1 Feature Comparison
TABLE 6-2 Bucket 1: Usage Reports
TABLE 6-3 Bucket 2: User-Activity Reports
TABLE 6-4 Types of Member Reports
Chapter 7
TABLE 7-1 Popular Zoom Apps
Chapter 8
TABLE 8-1 Zoom In-Webinar Controls for Webinar Hosts
TABLE 8-2 Zoom Options for Webinar Attendees
TABLE 8-3 Zoom Webinar Host-Annotation Options
Chapter 11
TABLE 11-1 In-Call Options for Zoom Phone Calls
Chapter 16
TABLE 16-1 Zoom Resources on Social Networks
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: Reese Witherspoon’s informal Twitter poll on video-conferencing usa...
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: Zoom’s suite of tools.
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: Zoom browser message.
FIGURE 3-2: Zoom email requesting account authentication.
FIGURE 3-3: Completing your Zoom account.
FIGURE 3-4: Zoom page with personal meeting URL.
FIGURE 3-5: Zoom email confirming new account.
FIGURE 3-6: Zoom message confirming upgrade from Basic to Pro plan.
FIGURE 3-7: Zoom account dashboard.
FIGURE 3-8: Zoom Download Center.
FIGURE 3-9: Logging in to the Zoom desktop client.
FIGURE 3-10: Zoom Meetings & Chat user interface.
FIGURE 3-11: Zoom prompt to add new users.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Zoom Personal Meeting ID.
FIGURE 4-2: Zoom user interface during active meetings.
FIGURE 4-3: Zoom automatically generated Gmail message with key meeting informa...
FIGURE 4-4: Four-person Zoom meeting with Active Speaker layout enabled.
FIGURE 4-5: Scheduling a future Zoom meeting.
FIGURE 4-6: Viewing a scheduled Zoom meeting.
FIGURE 4-7: Saved poll for future Zoom meeting.
FIGURE 4-8: Zoom meeting registration form.
FIGURE 4-9: Viewing meeting registrants.
FIGURE 4-10: Attendees’ view of the meeting while they are in the Zoom waiting ...
FIGURE 4-11: Participant notification in the Zoom Meetings desktop client.
FIGURE 4-12: Zoom video premeeting entry prompt.
FIGURE 4-13: Selecting a custom virtual background.
FIGURE 4-14: Meeting with the Participants panel displayed.
FIGURE 4-15: Live Zoom poll.
FIGURE 4-16: Early results of a simple Meetings & Chat poll.
FIGURE 4-17: Zoom initial breakout room host window.
FIGURE 4-18: Invitation for meeting participant to join breakout room.
FIGURE 4-19: Zoom window with breakout rooms activated.
FIGURE 4-20: Selecting a screen to share with meeting participants.
FIGURE 4-21: Zoom menu indicating active screen-sharing.
FIGURE 4-22: Mockup of programs running on an employee’s desktop computer.
FIGURE 4-23: Zoom whiteboard with annotation menu.
FIGURE 4-24: Viewing my previously recorded meetings in Meetings & Chat.
FIGURE 4-25: A user’s current data usage.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Meetings & Chat contact-specific actions.
FIGURE 5-2: Meetings & Chat contacts with their current status icons.
FIGURE 5-3: Chat button underneath a contact’s profile picture.
FIGURE 5-4: Simple Zoom message to an individual.
FIGURE 5-5: Meetings & Chat prompt for leaving a group chat that you initiated.
FIGURE 5-6: Simple group-chat message.
FIGURE 5-7: Example of a Meetings & Chat thread.
FIGURE 5-8: Zoom message with bullet points.
FIGURE 5-9: Zoom emoji and animated-gif picker.
FIGURE 5-10: Example of file shared with Zoom user via chat.
FIGURE 5-11: Zoom screen capture.
FIGURE 5-12: Zoom message-specific actions.
FIGURE 5-13: Meetings & Chat simple search results for the word
appreciate
.
FIGURE 5-14: New Meetings & Chat search results for the word “appreciate.”
FIGURE 5-15: Meetings & Chat search results for the phrase “appreciate it.”
FIGURE 5-16: Meetings & Chat search results for the phrase “don’t appreciate.”
FIGURE 5-17: Meetings & Chat search results with wildcards.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: New Zoom IM group with members.
FIGURE 6-2: Zoom information on
#Announcements
channel.
FIGURE 6-3: Zoom message referencing the public
#Marketing
channel.
FIGURE 6-4: Video camera icon to hold a quick channel meeting.
FIGURE 6-5: Zoom channel-specific search for the word feedback.
FIGURE 6-6: Customizing your notifications for a specific channel.
FIGURE 6-7: Customizing all notifications for all channels and group chats in a...
FIGURE 6-8: Zoom new snippet icon.
FIGURE 6-9: Creating a Zoom snippet.
FIGURE 6-10: Completed Zoom snippet sent to contact.
FIGURE 6-11: Partial view of Zoom admin and account report main screen.
FIGURE 6-12: Zoom daily usage report.
FIGURE 6-13: Zoom participants-usage reports for April 2020.
FIGURE 6-14: Zoom simple member-usage report.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: Zoom App Marketplace.
FIGURE 7-2: Zoom for Microsoft Outlook request for user permission.
FIGURE 7-3: Zoom home page for the Gmail app.
FIGURE 7-4: Zoom email confirming successful app installation.
FIGURE 7-5: Zoom in-app message from the Trello app.
FIGURE 7-6: Zoom email confirming successful app removal.
FIGURE 7-7: Currently installed Zoom apps.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: Scheduling a new Zoom webinar.
FIGURE 8-2: Zoom registration options and questions.
FIGURE 8-3: Zoom webinar invitation.
FIGURE 8-4: Unbranded Zoom webinar registration page.
FIGURE 8-5: Zoom attendee webinar registration confirmation.
FIGURE 8-6: Viewing list of registered attendees for webinar.
FIGURE 8-7: Zoom panelist options.
FIGURE 8-8: Zoom screen allowing host to notify registrants of webinar cancelat...
FIGURE 8-9: Zoom webinar launch screen.
FIGURE 8-10: Annotating your screen during a webinar.
FIGURE 8-11: Disabling attendee annotation.
FIGURE 8-12: Zoom attendee questions dismissed by webinar panelist or co-host.
FIGURE 8-13: Zoom Q&A options.
FIGURE 8-14: Zoom notification of participant activity.
FIGURE 8-15: Zoom attendee options.
FIGURE 8-16: Zoom webinar-sharing options.
FIGURE 8-17: Zoom downloaded webinar files.
FIGURE 8-18: Available reports on webinar attendees.
FIGURE 8-19: Zoom webinar attendee report.
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: Google Trends searches for Zoombombing over time.
FIGURE 9-2: Zoom installation wizard for Macs.
FIGURE 9-3: Partially redacted Zoom six-digit verification code in the Google A...
FIGURE 9-4: Zoom user authentication message.
FIGURE 9-5: Zoom form to create domain-specific authentication.
FIGURE 9-6: Zoom email confirmation of new security settings for user group.
FIGURE 9-7: Scheduling a meeting now that password field is required.
FIGURE 9-8: Zoom log file of chat activity during meeting.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: Zoom Room iPad app.
FIGURE 10-2: 55-inch DTEN All-in-One Video Conferencing Device.
FIGURE 10-3: Urben Frame ID for a three-screen, 55-inch Zoom Room setup.
FIGURE 10-4: cMe2 Huddle Room Light.
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11-1: Zoom updated UI after successfully subscribing to Zoom Phone.
FIGURE 11-2: Zoom users and rooms prior to plan assignment.
FIGURE 11-3: Zoom Phone first prompt to choose an outbound calling number from ...
FIGURE 11-4: Zoom’s second prompt to select an outbound calling number.
FIGURE 11-5: Email confirming assignment of a new Zoom Phone number.
FIGURE 11-6: Zoom desktop client displaying new phone-related features.
FIGURE 11-7: Phone section of the Zoom web portal.
FIGURE 11-8: Setting available business hours in Zoom.
FIGURE 11-9: Zoom Phone in-call controls.
FIGURE 11-10: Zoom email message indicating new voicemail.
FIGURE 11-11: Accessing your voicemails in the Zoom desktop client.
FIGURE 11-12: Zoom Caller ID option.
Guide
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Introduction
Depending on your age, you may take today’s powerful communication technologies for granted. (I have done it myself.) Trust me, however: Not that long ago, communicating with others was a dramatically different experience.
As recently as the early 1990s, the most pervasive methods for exchanging messages included instruments of which you may have never heard: landlines, intra-office memos, typewriters, and Telex and fax machines. For personal correspondence, handwritten letters were commonplace, not relics of a bygone era.
The following statistic illustrates the extent to which communication has changed over the last 30-plus years.
On January 24, 2001, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a study on the telecommunications industry. Remarkably, the FCC found that the average per-minute rate for interstate calls in 1984 was roughly 17 cents. (Read the study yourself at bit.ly/fcc-zoom.)
Say that you lived in northern New Jersey in 1984, as I did at the time. You called your friend in New York and talked for an hour. You could expect to pay $10 for the privilege. And forget about international calls. Back then, talking to someone in another country was prohibitively expensive. (And you think that long-distance relationships are hard now?) Even worse, the quality and reliability of audio calls usually left more than a bit to be desired. As for video calls, they were pipe dreams back then.
Fast forward to today. Put mildly, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Communication has undergone a veritable sea change. Thank the usual suspects: increasingly powerful computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, email, Moore’s Law, social networks, smartphones with their über-addictive apps, the explosion of affordable broadband connections, improvements from telecommunications carriers, ambitious entrepreneurs, and cloud computing.
The most recent addition to this formidable list is Zoom. Its suite of tools allows hundreds of millions of people to communicate and collaborate easily, affordably, and reliably with others no matter where they are. Both professionally and personally, Zoom allows people to stay in touch with each other, especially during pandemics and stay-at-home orders.
Zoom’s products help teachers conduct virtual classes with their students. Pilates and yoga instructors use Zoom in similar ways. Rock bands jam via Zoom, including Marillion — one of my very favorites. Rabbis and priests rely upon Zoom to connect with their congregations from their homes. Journalists conduct interviews with it. In the corporate world, Zoom helps salespeople close deals, host untold numbers of employee- and customer- training sessions, and allow executives to address their troops from distant locations.
No, Zoom doesn’t solve every conceivable communication problem. No software program can. Still, when used properly, Zoom promotes simple and effective communication — and more than 300 hundred million people have taken notice.
About This Book
Against this backdrop arrives Zoom For Dummies — the most extensive guide on how to use this powerful, flexible, affordable, and user-friendly suite of communication and collaboration tools. It provides an in-depth overview of Zoom’s most valuable features — some of which even experienced users may have overlooked. The book you’re holding goes beyond merely demonstrating how to install, configure, and customize Zoom’s flagship Meetings & Chat product, though. It also offers practical tips on how individual users, groups, and even entire firms can get the most out of Zoom’s tools. Finally and perhaps most important, I describe how to secure Zoom from prying eyes.
As with all titles in the For Dummies series, you’ll find the book’s organization and flow straightforward and intuitive. My tone is conversational, and I drop the occasional joke. (Whether or not it ultimately lands is your call to make.) Ideally, you’ll have fun while concurrently learning how to use an increasingly important, popular, and useful set of tools. I certainly enjoyed writing it.
Foolish Assumptions
I wrote Zoom For Dummies with a number of different cohorts in mind:
People who want to adopt a contemporary videoconferencing tool.
People who generally want to know more about Zoom’s different products and how they work. Perhaps they have subscribed to one (usually, Meetings & Chat) and want to learn more about the others.
Employees at companies that have already experimented with or purchased Zoom but haven’t explored most of its powerful features.
Organization decision-makers who believe that their employees can collaborate and communicate better and be more productive. (Make no mistake: They are right.)
The target audience for Zoom For Dummies is everyday users, not application developers. To be sure, I mention a few resources for people who want to know more about creating third-party apps. Coders looking for a text on how to build Zoom apps, however, will have to go elsewhere.
Zoom For Dummies presumes zero prior use or even knowledge of Zoom’s suite of tools. Zilch. Fret not if you’re not exactly tech-savvy. You’ll be fine. Perhaps you just want to understand more about what this “Zoom thing” does and how you can do it. In fact, even if you have used Zoom’s tools, reading this book will teach you a great deal.
Congratulations. You’ve found the right book.
I do, however, make a few assumptions. Specifically:
You are curious about how you can use Zoom to communicate with your colleagues, partners, customers, vendors, and/or friends.
You know how to use a proper computer, whether it’s a Mac or PC.
You can navigate a mobile device, such as a smartphone or a tablet.
At some point in your life, you’ve accessed the Internet via a web browser.
I’m a firm believer in truth in advertising. By way of background, my editor and I wanted to keep this book at a reasonable length and cost. Accomplishing this objective forced me to make some conscious decisions about its content that I want you know from the get-go.
First, the book that you’re holding is no 700-page opus. Moby Dick it is not. At the same time, though, it certainly isn’t slim. Zoom For Dummies does not include step-by-step directions to configure and tweak every setting or feature for a single Zoom service, never mind all of them. Please understand this choice going in. Such a task is simply impractical. Even if it were, Zoom adds new features on a regular basis and, on occasion, changes and retires existing ones. All software companies do today. Way it goes…
At a high level, Zoom For Dummies highlights
Its essential and frequently used features
Some relatively obscure functionality that people should use or, at the very least, ought to know about
In some cases, I describe a feature without spending valuable space on how to actually do it because Zoom makes it self-explanatory.
Second and along these lines, I have intentionally written all the instructions in this book in a device-agnostic manner. In other words, I demonstrate how to do things in Zoom by using its desktop client and, in some necessary cases, via a web browser.
No, I’m not living in the past. (Well, I am with my tastes in music and movies, but I digress.) I know full well that mobile devices arrived in earnest a long time ago. At times, I mention in passing how you can perform a specific Zoom task on a smartphone or tablet. Due to space considerations, however, I simply cannot replicate how to execute each Zoom action on all iOS and Android versions and devices. Minor differences persist.
Even if I somehow managed to pull off that remarkable feat in the following pages, odds are that you’d ignore large chunks of Zoom For Dummies. Very few folks use every mainstream operating system or OS. People typically pick one side or the other. As Mr. Spock says in the 1982 film The Wrath of Khan, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Fear not, young Jedi. (Apologies to sci-fi geeks for putting Star Wars and Star Trek references so close together.) The vast majority of users find Zoom to be remarkably intuitive. You’ll soon be able to naturally perform many of Zoom’s key functions. In the event that accomplishing something on your phone or tablet vexes you, the support portion of Zoom’s website contains detailed instructions on how to do whatever you want on every OS.
Icons Used in This Book
Zoom For Dummies highlights key information in the margins. You’ll find small pictures that indicate the following:
This icon identifies shortcuts and/or tricks that should save you some time.
Be careful whenever you see this icon.
This icon highlights technical information that may or may not interest you. If not, then feel free to skip it.
You’ll want to keep these key points in mind as you work in Zoom. This icon emphasizes those points.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the book that you’re reading right now, you can also access a free Zoom Cheat Sheet. It’s full of pointers and shortcuts on how to immediately start using Meetings & Chat. Access it by visiting www.dummies.com and typing “Zoom For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Where to Go from Here
If you like, you can start reading this book on page one and continue to the end. The option is yours. Zoom For Dummies isn’t a novel or play. If you’ve already dabbled with Zoom’s powerful suite of communication tools, then you can jump around to the sections that pique your interest. I’ve written it in that vein.
If you’re only considering hopping on the Zoom train or have only heard about it, then begin with the first three chapters. From there, you’ll want to read in a relatively linear manner.
Regardless of where you ultimately start reading, you’ll find it helpful to create a new, free Zoom account or log into your existing one at www.zoom.us. You should also download the Zoom desktop client for your computer. Over the years, I have taught myself plenty of new programming languages, applications, and technologies. I have found that getting my hands dirty and doing the exercises myself to be invaluable.
Thank You
Thank you for buying Zoom For Dummies. I hope that you find it useful, informative, and even a little entertaining. Throughout the book, I demonstrate Zoom’s many potential benefits and how to take advantage of them.
I deliberately qualified the previous statement with the word “potential.” Zoom’s tools have never been an elixir. They don’t let Zoom’s customers magically solve all of their communication-related challenges.
Zoom will never be such a tool, nor will any technology or app for that matter. Despite being able to use Zoom, many employees will invariably revert to incessant email threads; these folks will use Zoom intermittently, if at all. In the process, they will fail to recognize its considerable advantages. As with any new tool, Zoom’s ultimate individual, group, and organizational success hinges upon many factors. At the top of my list are opening your mind and setting realistic expectations for what it can and can’t do.
Good luck on your journey for better communication and collaboration. Let me know if I can help.
Phil Simon | www.philsimon.com
June 30, 2020
Part 1
Staying Connected with Zoom
IN THIS PART …
Find out about Zoom and the core technologies behind it.
Discover how Zoom became the gold standard for videoconferencing.
Get to know Zoom’s robust suite of collaboration and communication tools.
Chapter 1
Communicating and Collaborating Better with Zoom
IN THIS CHAPTER
Explaining what Zoom’s tools do
Dissecting the reasons that Zoom grew so quickly
Understanding Zoom’s competitive landscape
What is Zoom anyway? Where did it come from? Was it the result of long-term planning, a eureka moment, or a happy accident? Is Zoom only for large organizations, or can smaller ones benefit from it? And what business problems does Zoom solve, anyway?
This chapter answers these questions in spades. Further, it provides some background information about Zoom, the technologies behind it, and its main competition.
Introducing Zoom
Zoom provides a suite of simple, affordable, powerful, secure, and interoperable communication and collaboration tools. As of this writing, the company’s self-purposed mission is to make video communications frictionless.
As you see in this book, Zoom has accomplished its mission in spades. Zoom’s management and investors bet the company on the belief that it could build a better mousetrap. With it, people could accomplish more than they could without it. Again, you can check that box. That gamble has paid off handsomely. It has vastly exceeded its early aspirations.
Discovering Zoom’s origins
In August 1997, Eric Yuan began working as a software engineer at Webex — one of the first enterprise-videoconferencing companies. Yuan grew his team from ten engineers to more than 800 across the globe. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy of Anchorman fame, Webex became kind of a big deal. On March 15, 2007, Cisco Systems acquired the company in a deal worth $3.2 billion.
At Cisco, Yuan rose to the level of VP of Engineering — a key role at a tech juggernaut. As part of his job, he spent a good chunk of his time talking to Webex enterprise customers about the videoconferencing program. To put it bluntly, many businesses disliked Webex’s complexity and general clunkiness. (Apropos of nothing, I felt the same way back then.)
After a few years, Yuan began to doubt whether Cisco would be able to improve Webex as much as its customers were demanding. To boot, other software vendors were starting to catch up. Yuan questioned whether Cisco’s management would invest the requisite time and resources required to build a new, better generation of videoconferencing products — one that could easily scale up and down as needed thanks to the rise of cloud computing.
Yuan wasn’t guessing; he exactly knew what enterprise customers needed. He envisioned a single, modern app that would seamlessly work on any device: laptop, computer, tablet, and smartphone. Because of his background, Yuan realized that minor tweaks to Webex’s legacy code base would not suffice. Rather, undertaking such an endeavor would require a ground-up product rebuild.
Yuan knew that transforming Webex at Cisco would require him to fight many bruising internal battles. After several relatively enjoyable post-acquisition years, the politicking was starting to wear Yuan down. As he told NBC in August 2019, “Every day, when I woke up, I was not very happy. I even did not want to go to the office to work.” (Visit cnb.cx/zfd-123 to read the article.)
Yuan predictably left Cisco in June 2011 and took 40 talented engineers with him. Later that month, he founded Zoom Video Communications, Inc. He wanted to refine a concept that he first conceived during the 1990s as a college student in China. Back then, Yuan had to commute ten hours to his then-girlfriend, now his wife. (Read the entire interview at bit.ly/zfd-eric.)
The company launched its flagship Meetings & Chat service in January 2013. Its target customers remained the same from Yuan’s Webex and Cisco days: other businesses. By May 2013, more than 1 million people used Zoom products. In March 2019, Zoom officially filed to go public on the NASDAQ. April 18, 2019, marked its first day of trading.
Understanding what Zoom does
Zoom’s tools help individuals, formal and informal groups, departments, and even entire organizations communicate and collaborate better. In this way, Zoom falls under the umbrella of technologies often labeled as Unified Communications (UC). The term first gained popularity in the mid-1990s. (I’m happy to report that I was there.) In a nutshell, UC describes a collection of integrated, enterprise-grade communication services. Specific examples include
Instant messaging (IM):
Also known as
chat
.
Presence information:
Status indicators that conveys one’s availability to communicate.
Voice:
This bucket includes calls or, more precisely, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony.
Audio, web, and video conferencing:
The ability to hold different types of calls with large groups of people.
Desktop sharing:
The ability to instantly see what your peer is doing.
Data sharing:
Interactive whiteboards, annotation, and the like.
Unified messaging:
Integrated voicemail, email, and fax.
You may not have heard of UC before now. Again, though, it’s not exactly new. In fact, the idea of using the web to do things such as make audio and video calls is almost as old as the web itself.
The following sidebar explains a bit of history behind some of UC’s technical underpinnings. Make no mistake: These pillars remain critical today even if they run seamlessly in the background. Feel free to skip the nearby sidebar, however, if you consider it too much information — or TMI, as the kids say today.
A BRIEF PRIMER ON COMMUNICATING OVER THE INTERNET
You probably have not heard of ARPANET, but you almost certainly use the technology behind it every day.
In the 1960s, the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union was simmering. The two powers nearly destroyed each other during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Things got very real. In the aftermath of the near debacle, government officials began to wonder how citizens would communicate with each other in the event of a nuclear conflict and tens of millions of deaths.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. Department of Defense launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The agency began work on a decentralized network that would, at a high level, address that very question. Launched in 1969, ARPANET represented the first network of its kind. Back then, communication networks were primitive, especially by today’s standards. (If Netflix had existed back then, you would not have had any luck streaming 4K videos.)
But how would that network actually work?
Packets
Circuit-based networks are centralized in nature. Examples include traditional telephone systems. In the event of a nuclear war, one strategic missile would render the entire network inoperable. What’s more, they involve a great deal of manual intervention. That’s why switchboard operators manually patched through calls to recipients beginning in 1878. Brass tacks: The ARPA folks knew that a circuit-based network ultimately wouldn’t meet their objectives.
Remember that even the most powerful networks of the time could not transmit even modest amounts of information in one big chunk. To overcome this obstacle, ARPANET engineers and scientists relied upon a concept called packet switching. Developed by American computer scientist Paul Baran in the early 1960s, the basic idea involved automatically breaking down data sent over digital networks into their smallest possible components: packets. The network would disseminate these packets without any human intervention. For more on this arcane yet fascinating subject, check out Katie Hafner’s 1998 book Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (Simon & Schuster).
To this end, APRANET was downright revolutionary. It represented the first wide-area packet-switching network. Ever. Even though today’s telecommunications networks are far more robust than they were 50 years ago, packet switching remains a core tenet of today’s Internet. And so are protocols.
Protocols
Think of protocols as common languages that allow devices, networks, computers, and servers to communicate with each other. For example, all websites begin with http. That’s no coincidence. The acronym stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Among other things, http defines how the web formats and transmits messages, images, web pages, and much more. Email also relies upon several essential protocols.
As it relates to some of Zoom’s suite of services, two protocols are especially important:
H.323 provides multimedia communication standards for equipment, computers, and services across packet-based networks. It specifies precisely how to transmit real-time video, audio, and data. H.323 is popular with IP-based videoconferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and Internet telephony.Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) initiates, maintains, and terminates real-time sessions. Typical applications include voice, video, and messaging.Bottom line: Without packets and protocols, you wouldn’t be able to send an email or view a web page, much less make audio or video calls from your devices.
Reviewing the numbers behind Zoom’s rapid ascent
Zoom has been a popular enterprise tool since its inception. Case in point: In December 2019, 10 million people regularly used Zoom’s tools. Most CEOs only dream about this level of success. Along the way, Zoom has landed many prominent customers, including
The Nasdaq stock market
Ridesharing behemoth Uber
Delta Airlines
Harvard University
High-end audio vendor Sonos
Of course, the preceding list consists of large organizations and/or multibillion dollar companies. You may be thinking that Zoom lies outside of the reach of your local law firm, dentist’s office, or web-design shop.
And you’d be spectacularly wrong.
For a variety of reasons that I cover later in this chapter, Zoom has long appealed to the smallest of startups and mid-sized businesses. (See the section “Reaping the Benefits of Zoom’s Tools.”)
Case in point: My friend Andrew Botwin runs a successful executive coaching shop. His company is the very definition of a small business. Like me, he gladly pays a modest annual fee for Zoom’s Pro Meetings & Chat plan. (Chapter 2 covers Zoom’s specific offerings, plans, and prices, in far more detail.) As Botwin told me, “Zoom allows me to conduct meetings with an in-person type of feel. It also lets me easily share my computer screen with my clients.”
Zoom’s industry penetration runs the gamut: healthcare, retail, higher education, manufacturing, finance, nonprofit — you name it. As for employer age, companies both young and old have jumped on the Zoom bandwagon. For years, thousands of businesses have regularly used Zoom’s tools to communicate and collaborate with their employees, customers, prospects, and partners.
To read more about how a wide array of companies uses Zoom in innovative ways, go to bit.ly/zm-cust.
All of this is to say that, as a company, Zoom was doing extraordinarily well before a global pandemic shook the world to its core.
Assessing how COVID-19 changed Zoom’s trajectory
Starting in early February 2020, the company’s floodgates began to blow open. In a matter of weeks, oodles of businesses from mom-and-pop stores to large enterprises started getting Zoom religion. Examples of rapid Zoom adoption abounded during this unprecedented time. Here’s one of them.
On March 19, 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order for his state’s citizens. As a result, thousands of California-based businesses needed to adapt to a new world — and fast. One such shop was Reeder Music Academy based in Danville, California. Within a week, the 28-employee company migrated roughly 70 percent of its classes online using — you guessed it —Meetings & Chat. Thousands of small businesses in just one state would have immediately shuttered were it not for affordable videoconferencing tools such as Zoom.
A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF CORONAVIRUS
In late 2019, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens mysteriously contracted a severe respiratory illness and started dying. People with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and generally weak immune systems were particularly susceptible to contracting it. Ultimately dubbed coronavirus, the outbreak quickly escalated to nightmarish proportions and every country in the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization did the inevitable and declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
Since that time and as of this writing, the numbers have been nothing short of grim: According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 500,000 people have died across the globe. More than five million others became infected but have since recovered. Epidemiologists almost unanimously agree that a second wave is coming in the fall of 2020.
When coronavirus hit the United States in earnest, it evoked images of the 1918 Spanish flu. To minimize the carnage and stress on their healthcare systems, state governments — some far more reluctantly than others — issued stay-at-home orders.
COVID-19 did not just leave more than 100,000 dead bodies in its wake. It wrought psychological, social, and economic devastation as well. With respect to the latter, tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. U.S. unemployment spiked to nearly 15 percent in April 2020. Most workplaces, parks, restaurants, schools, retail stores, and places of worship closed. Musicians postponed concerts, comedians canceled shows, and professional sports as the world knows them ceased to exist.
Against this backdrop, hundreds of millions people needed to find new, virtual ways to work and, more than that, recapture some semblance of normalcy. In each case, Zoom was the most popular choice.
And Zoom adoption quickly spread to decidedly non-corporate environments. As but one example during the height of frenzy, teachers from more than 90,000 schools across 20 countries began educating their students from their homes via Meetings & Chat. Beyond professional reasons, people needed a way to connect with their family and friends. Again, Zoom answered the bell.
To say that Zoom’s user numbers exploded over a three-month period would be the acme of understatement. By the end of March 2020, more than 200 million people participated in both free and paid Zoom meetings every day. (Industry types refer to this number as daily active users, or DAUs.) By way of comparison, just four months earlier, Zoom had averaged approximately 10 million DAUs. The 2,000 percent increase was downright stupefying.
And Zoom’s user growth didn’t stop there.
During its first fiscal quarter of 2020 (ending on April 30), Zoom reported that its DAUs had climbed to 300 million — a 50 percent jump from only a month earlier. Many of those users decided to become proper customers. Company revenue in that quarter grew by an eye-popping 169 percent. Analyst Richard Valera of the asset-management firm Needham called the results “incredible.” (Read more about Zoom’s most recent financial results at on.wsj.com/2Y0RJjz.)
Fast-forward a few weeks. As of July 1, 2020, Zoom’s market capitalization exceeded a staggering $73 billion. If you had bought Zoom stock just a few months earlier, you’d be ecstatic.
It wasn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream for Zoom, though. On the flip side, its viral consumer growth has led to some unexpected issues and a slew of bad press. (I cover those legitimate concerns in Chapter 9.) For now, however, rest assured: Zoom’s management has taken its unforeseen challenges very seriously.
Reviewing Zoom’s industry awards and recognition
Beyond Zoom’s outrageous growth, the company has garnered plenty of recognition and even won some prestigious industry awards. Highlights include
Leader in Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions:
You may not be familiar with the world of enterprise software. Trust me, though, vendors expend an enormous amount of energy trying to land in the vaunted Magic Quadrant.
2019 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies:
Employers that make this list are doing something right.
Glassdoor Second Best Place to Work in 2019:
Employees tend to like working at Zoom. This accolade and its attendant publicity help the company attract, retain, and motivate highly skilled workers.
MY ZOOM BONA FIDES
As a reader, it’s fair to ask about my experience using the tool about which I am writing.
By way of background, I’ve been using videoconferencing tools for two decades. (I’m no spring chicken anymore.) Over the years and in no particular order, I’ve played with Skype, Webex, Join.me, and Adobe Connect. Thanks to Zoom, though, I have largely said adios to those applications. (I return to them later in this chapter in the section “Main competitors.”)
For the last few years, I’ve used Zoom primarily for individual and group videoconferencing, screen-sharing, and webinars. What’s more, because I wear a number of different hats, I’ve become a convert on a several levels. First, as an independent writer, speaker, trainer, and advisor, I frequently hold Zoom meetings with my clients and prospects when in-person meetings just aren’t possible. Second, during my days as a college professor, I engaged with my students on a near-daily basis via Zoom — and Slack as well, to be fair. (If you’re not familiar with Slack, check out my book Slack For Dummies.)
That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy real-world interactions. I most certainly do. Again, though, physical meetings aren’t always possible, especially with online students halfway across the globe.
Analyzing Zoom’s competitive landscape
When it comes to videoconferencing apps right now, Zoom is unequivocally the prettiest girl at the ball. To be fair, though, it’s hardly the only one.
Before continuing, a disclaimer is in order: Contending that one tool is inherently and objectively “better” than another is silly. (Try telling a long-time Samsung user that she’s missing out on the far cooler iPhone. See how that goes.) So much hinges on personal preferences. For example, say that you’re a die-hard fan of BlueJeans. In this case, no one will convince you that you ought to use Zoom — and that includes yours truly.
Still, consider the following two types of software vendors:
Group A:
Large companies that dabble in many fields. Examples here include Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, SAP, and Amazon.
Group B:
Smaller outfits that specialize in one specific type of application. Examples here include Zoom, Slack, and BlueJeans.
Generally speaking, the Davids in Group B have historically tended to more quickly innovate and respond to their customers than the Goliaths in Group A. This claim is especially valid over the past 15 years. Precisely because of their laser focus, boutique firms often produce better wares than their larger brethren do. Scrappy upstarts are almost always better at keeping their eyes on the prize.
Main competitors
Table 1-1 provides a list of Zoom’s main contemporary rivals.
TABLE 1-1 Mainstream Videoconferencing Tools
Name
Description
Cisco Webex
Born in early 1995, Webex was one of the first web-based videoconferencing tools. Fast-forward to March 2007. Cisco acquired it for $3.2 billion. Over the years, plenty of products have surpassed Webex in terms of popularity and functionality. At the risk of being a bit harsh, asking sometime to join you via Webex today is tantamount to sending an email from an America Online (AOL) address. It may still technically work, but you probably won’t score many points with others by suggesting that they use it for your upcoming videoconference.
Vonage
Founded by Jeff Pulver in 1998, the company was one of the pioneers of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and exceptionally popular back in the days of landlines. Fun fact: I worked on a consulting project at its headquarters in the mid-2000s.
RingCentral
Born in 1999, the company remains among the UC leaders in terms of revenue and subscriber seats. Now publicly traded, its market capitalization is roughly $24 billion as of early June 2020.
Skype (consumer version)
Initially released way back in August 2003, at one point nearly 700 million people used the service. After acquisitions first by eBay and then by Microsoft, Skype has lost some steam. Plenty of observers and former employees say that the company squandered its opportunities. (For more on this subject, see cnb.cx/zoom2-ps.)
Skype for Business
Formerly known as Lync, Microsoft rebranded it as Skype as Business. (Yes, the regular consumer-grade version of Skype is alive and well.) Much like Google, Microsoft supports a bevy of related collaboration tools.
Amazon Chime
Amazon launched its foray into the crowded space in July 2017. Chime lets users meet, chat, and place business calls inside and outside your organization.
BlueJeans Meetings
BlueJeans started in 2009 and offers similar services to Zoom. Remarkably, in its first 75 days, the company landed 4,000 subscribers from 500 firms. Not too shabby.
GoToMeeting
Initially released in July 2004, the tool has evolved over the years and still sports a loyal user base. At one point, I paid for it.
Zoho Meeting
The company released its offering in 2017. It serves as part of its suite of productivity tools.
Join.Me
Now owned by parent company LogMeIn, Join.Me still sports some prominent customers. I used it for a long time before switching to Zoom.
Fuze
Formerly known as ThinkingPhones, the videoconferencing company also focuses on enterprise customers.
Google Meet
To paraphrase the iconic Simpsons’ character Troy McClure, you may remember this tool as an original feature of Google’s ill-fated social network Google+. Hangouts became a standalone product in 2013. At that time, Google also started integrating features from Google+ Messenger and Google Talk into Hangouts. If all of these related products seem to overlap and strike you as a tad confusing, trust your judgment. In this way, Google resembles its rival Microsoft.
UberConference
Founded in 2012, the tool sports a clean, elegant design.
Facebook Messenger Rooms
Launched in May 2020, Messenger Rooms lets people join Facebook group video calls even if they abstain from using the social network, as I do.
Intermedia AnyMeeting
AnyMeeting launched in 2011 and survived as an independent entity until September 2017 when Intermedia gobbled it up and rebranded it.
Adobe Connect
Adobe Connect is the umbrella term for former Macromedia products that the company acquired and rebranded. The linages of these products trace back to the early 2000s.
For a useful chart that compares many of these tools, visit bit.ly/vc-compare.
Say that your organization suddenly adopts Zoom. If you’ve used any of the tools listed in Table 1-1, odds are that most employees will pick up Zoom relatively quickly.
Slack and Microsoft Teams
Table 1-1 intentionally omits two prominent collaboration tools: Slack and Microsoft Teams. To be sure, both applications allow users to hold video calls. I should know because I regularly use them. Still, it’s misleading to call Slack and Microsoft Teams videoconferencing tools.
Sure, Slack and Teams both let users hold multiperson videoconferences and share their screens. If you think that that’s the sum total of what those programs can do, though, then you’re sorely mistaken. You’re severely underestimating what they can do. It’s like using your smartphone only to make phone calls or your Lexus convertible for the sole purpose of holding your coffee flask, to paraphrase one of my favorite jokes by the erudite comedian Gary Gulman.
Why today’s breed of videoconferencing tools crushes its ancestors
It’s important to remember that many popular, first-generation VoIP and videoconferencing tools have disappeared. (For an interesting read on the history of the technology, see bit.ly/vcz-hist.) Today’s major players benefit from many advantages that their predecessors lacked:
Better broadband availability:
Not that long ago, most people dialed up via modems and were lucky to connect to the Internet at 56k per second. In large part, you can thank better pipes in the form of fiber-optic cables.
More robust networks:
Cellular network technology is a far cry today from 20 years ago. This trend will only intensify as carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon, start rolling out 5G.
Far cheaper data-storage costs:
Companies such as Zoom can store a virtually unlimited number of 400-megabyte (MB) customer videos because it’s inexpensive to do so. It wasn’t always that way.
Smartphones:
iPhones and Androids destroy BlackBerrys. There. I said it.
Application programming interface (APIs):
These powerful tools allow developers to easily stitch together different applications. I explain more about this concept in
Chapter 7
.
The widespread availability of cloud computing:
Companies can spin up new services in a fraction of the time required during the late 1990s.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence:
Software is constantly improving its speech-recognition and transcription capabilities. Yeah, Siri remains pretty dumb, but it’s getting smarter all the time.
Powerful repositories of open-source software:
Code repositories help developers build all sorts of cool things — including videoconferencing. For some free alternatives, check out
https://red.ht/2Jqyjxz
.
For these reasons, contemporary videoconferencing applications such as Zoom represent a quantum leap over first-generation ones. It’s not even close.
It’s no coincidence that Zoom’s suite of tools works so well and reliably. In large part, Zoom’s rock-solid performance stems from how its bright founder and engineers deliberately chose to build it. In other words, Zoom embraced powerful and contemporary technologies from the get-go — not as an afterthought. Because of its greenfield approach and intelligent design, Zoom’s offerings remarkably support a raft of concurrent users without a degradation in quality. For more information on this subject, see the nearby sidebar “Looking under Zoom’s hood.”
LOOKING UNDER ZOOM’S HOOD
Zoom works so well because it made intelligent choices about specific technologies and design:
A distributed architecture: Early videoconferencing vendors built their wares in a relatively centralized and resource-intensive manner. For example, say that you were in New York in 2005 calling a coworker in the same building with one of those legacy tools. Your app may have to route the call through a data center all the way in Ireland. By contrast and like many newer tech companies today, Zoom has embraced a distributed configuration. This deliberate design choice means that the app automatically directs users to the nearest of the 13 data centers in its vast network. (The company continually invests in its data centers.) As a result, Zoom provides its customers with greater reliability and reduced call latency.Multimedia routing: Early videoconferencing systems tended to use Multipoint Control Unit (MCU), a resource-intensive streaming method that restricts call quality and scalability. For its part, Zoom uses a more contemporary and efficient streaming method called multimedia routing.Multi-bitrate encoding: Zoom recognizes that one size doesn't fit all. Calling your friends from home via your laptop and your ultra-high-speed Internet connection is a far cry from using your smartphone on your carrier’s data plan. Zoom automatically adjusts your call quality based on the capabilities of your hardware devices and Internet Service Provider (ISP).Application-layer service quality: Zoom wisely built a layer into its technology stack specifically to optimize video, audio, and screen-sharing. At a high level and similar to multi-bitrate encoding, this layer accounts for users’ different devices and bandwidth levels.Intelligent use of data and metadata: Zoom is able to route data on its network more efficiently than legacy videoconferencing tools could. There’s plenty to unpack here, but a key point is that Zoom makes extensive use of call metadata. (Metadata is simply data about data.) For example, Zoom knows the device and location of all call participants.Cloud computing: Zoom relies heavily on cloud computing to deliver the goods. For hosting, Zoom engages industry leader Amazon Web Services (AWS). More than 1 million AWS customers know that they can easily and automatically scale up in the face of rapid and unexpected spikes in demand — in other words, precisely during events such as COVID-19.Consider the following two scenarios:
Scenario A: You’re making a videocall to your friend on your Android phone with your AT&T data plan in a remote area.Scenario B: An executive hosts a multiperson videoconference via her laptop in corporate headquarters with extensive bandwidth through its ISP.In those scenarios, Zoom will automatically allocate more resources to the call in scenario B.
Visit bit.ly/zm-stack for more on the specific technologies that Zoom uses to make the magic happen.
Zoom’s current market share
Where does Zoom rank in comparison to its competitors?
It’s a fair question to ask. After all, you don’t want to invest in a niche tool that may quickly disappear.
The answer is a little complicated.
In April 2019, Tom Eagle of the respected firm Gartner Research told the website CIO Dive that Zoom is “displacing some of these other giant vendors.” Zoom’s rise has carved out market share from Microsoft, Cisco, and some of the other established behemoths listed earlier in this chapter in Table 1-1. (Visit bit.ly/ciodive-z to read the piece.) Back then, estimates of Zoom’s market share ranged from about 15 to 20 percent.
Of course, answering that question amid the rapid adoption taking place is now virtually impossible. Blame COVID-19 for that difficulty, among many others. Still, it’s inarguable that Zoom’s market share has grown over the past year. How much is anyone’s guess, but the increase is probably substantial.
Exhibit A: In March 2020, Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon of Legally Blonde fame conducted a highly unscientific Twitter poll on individuals’ preferred work-from-home (WFH) tool. Figure 1-1 displays the results.
It doesn’t take a survey expert to poke holes in Witherspoon’s informal methodology — not that she’s a scientist. The results, however, offer additional evidence that Zoom’s ascension is sudden and real. The natural question is why.
FIGURE 1-1: Reese Witherspoon’s informal Twitter poll on video-conferencing usage.
Every year, videoconferencing hardware maker Owl Labs creates a slick and informative report on the state of the industry. The 2019 version of the survey includes responses from more than 1,000 U.S.-based professionals. (You can access it by visiting bit.ly/zoomowl.) Short version: The vast majority of Zoom’s customers love using it.
Reaping the Benefits of Zoom’s Tools
Zoom’s suite of tools isn’t hurting for powerful features. In other words, it allows both employers and their employees to communicate and collaborate better in a number of ways.
The company sells a number of related, but distinct, offerings. (See Chapter 2
