With government stay-at-home orders around the world, millions of people have resorted to video calls or conferencing to deal with isolation issues or enhance social connectedness. Skype, owned by Microsoft, have been at the forefront of the situation and recently launched a collaboration video technology known as “Meet Now.”
Meet Now works for users that have Skype software installed on their desktop or mobile app on their smartphones, and it also works for people who do not have it on their devices. A user can use the call link and share invite button to invite others to a virtual video meeting, and with this unique link, a recipient can join a meeting.
If the recipient of the invite link has Skype already installed on their device, it will open their Skype account for the collaborative meeting. And if the recipient does not have Skype on their device, they can choose to either install it or have the Skype for Web client opened for them without the need to sign-in or sign-up for Skype.
“Meet Now in Skype allows you to easily set up a collaboration space and invite both Skype contacts and friends or family who are not on Skype,” the company wrote. “Participants can then easily join meetings whether they have an account or not.”
Video conferencing or call can also be initiated from Skype on Web, and it can be used for conference calls, webinars, and work interviews or just social chats. During a virtual conference, participants can view other participants on the meeting, share the Meet Now link with others, record calls or videos, share their screen, and mute the microphone if they want. Recorded calls or videos will remain available on Skype for 30 days while other media shared in the chats will longer on the system.
Although Zoom has also been achieving giant strides in the use of its video chats since global isolation was enforced for all citizens of the world to curtail the spread of coronavirus, the video system continues to face backlashes from the general public in the areas of security and privacy among other concerns. Zoom experienced a 2000% surge in the user rate since December 2019, but the growing security grievances against the company is doing the company a lot of ill at the moment, and this is where Skype comes up as a good alternative.
Source: Skype.com
