Digital Advice

Zoom

Zoom was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, who used to be a Cisco Webex engineer and executive. With the Covid-19 outbreak, Zoom seemed to be used by just about everyone. This led to things like Zoom-bombing - the practice of joining someone else's Zoom meeting and disrupting it. People were, to begin with, quite lax about sharing links for meetings and so other people would join the meeting and cause chaos. There were other security issues, which Zoom responded to, for example, by allowing hosts to lock meeting (ie not allow anyone else to join) or removing participants. It's now possible to prevent people from sharing their screens or renaming themselves.

Webex

Webex started life in 1995 and was taken over by Cisco in 2007. It's been used by businesses for a long time. It does have a free version that has now increased the number of participants from 50 to 100 and removed the 40-minute time-limit on meetings. It also now has call-in abilities.

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting was, perhaps, the main competitor to Webex. It was developed in 2004 for Web conferencing and was developed further over time by Citrix, who later merged the product with LogMeIn. The entry-level plan allows for 150 participants, while the enterprise plan can include up to 3,000.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams for online meetings started life as its Skype for Business tool. It can host video meetings for up to 250 people. Users can share their screens and meetings can be recorded. It comes as part of Microsoft 365 and integrates well with it. Microsoft are currently offering Teams for free until the pandemic is over.

Google Meet

Google Meet started as Google Hangout Meet and was part of Google's paid-for G Suite. But it is now being rolled out for free. You can have up to 100 people on the call and there's no time limit until the end of March 2021. Google Meet's big selling point is that it is very secure.

Messenger Rooms

Facebook has come out with its equivalent to Zoom called Facebook Messenger Rooms. It is completely free and allows up to 50 people to join a meeting and there is no time limit. Apparently, Facebook is planning to make it possible to create rooms from WhatsApp, Instagram Direct, and Portal. Rooms is really designed for people to hang out together in their own lockdown areas and drop in and out rather than for business meetings. Like all things to do with Facebook, there are some worries about what information about you it will collect and what it will do with it.

Zoho Meetings

Zoho Meetings lets you host end-to-end encrypted video meetings, conference calls, and webinars, all of which can be accessed through dial-ins and email links. It's an open-source video conferencing service providing end-to-end encryption. Meetings can have up to 100 participants. Meeting tools include screen sharing, the ability to record calls, and moderation (eg you can mute participants, for example). It's not free, although there is a free 14-day trial.

Jitsi Meet

Jitsi Meet is an open-source platform that lets users create online meetings from the website by clicking on Go. It can support up to 75 participants, and, for security, users can lock their room with a password. This is free.

FreeConferenceCall.com

FreeConferenceCall.com is a website founded in 2001. Users create a free account and receive a Dial-in Number and Access Code for immediate conferencing, and an Online Meeting ID for hosting meetings with Screen Sharing and Video Conferencing. After logging in to an account, participants are invited by email to join the meeting.

Skype Meet Now

There's also Skype, which is free. The Skype Meet Now feature (which is accessed from the Meet Now button on the left side of the app) offers free videoconferencing. It allows up to 50 users in a meeting, and users don't need an account to sign in, just a link. You can create a free conference room on the Skype website. Apart from a text chat window, there isn't anything else you'd expect in a business meeting application.

Slack and Amazon Chime

Slack, which a lot of companies use for business communication, does have a video conferencing facility. It is migrating its audio and video call capabilities to Amazon's Chime platform, which is a communications service that lets users meet, chat, and place business calls inside and outside of their organization, from a single application. This makes it similar to Webex and Zoom.

Discord

Discord is really a gaming app that offers encrypted chat, messaging, and video calls. Users set up a dedicated 'server', which can be organized into rooms (a bit like Slack) that host video and text-based chats. It supports 50 people in a Go Live video call. Group video chats allow users to stream their gameplay to friends and spectators, and the voice channels make it easy to chat through Discord while playing. You can download a Windows version or use it in your browser.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp allows for free audio and video calls with up to four people. It does offer end-to-end encryption. And most people have got the free app on their phone. WhatsApp Web let's you use your phone. However, as yet, if you use WhatsApp from your computer/laptop you can only share messages - you can't share your screen or make video calls though. In some cases, you can use WhatsApp to videocall using a Facebook 'Portal' device, which provides a bigger camera/screen range to videocall with WhatsApp. Video calls using Facebook Messenger can also be used in this way.

Talky

Talky, a video chat app, works with up to six participants. There's no registration, users pick a name for their group and send the link to their friends. It does offer screen sharing, and chats are encrypted. And it's free.

Houseparty

Houseparty is another group video chatting service. Users receive a notification when friends are online and available to group video chat. On average, users spend approximately 51 minutes a day on the app in group or one-on-one chats. The app is now owned by Epic games. Houseparty supports up to eight callers at once. Party games such as Trivia, Head's Up! and others are available, with in-app purchases available.

Currently, there's a whole range of videoconferencing facilities available from industrial-strength secure products that are clearly aimed at business down to products that run on phones or are geared mainly towards gamers. Some are paid for and some are free or come with a free trial. It's worth keeping an eye on press reports about security. It's probably best to use one for a hypnotherapy session that you know how to use - so find one you like and make sure it does all the things you need it to. Also, most providers will have extensive online help videos/resources (you can also find some on YouTube), so make sure you take time to learn about the functionality and settings of whatever solution you use, to ensure that you are using it in the safest and most convenient way.