Zoom Launches Two New Features At Once, Users Can Play In-App Games

JAKARTA - Zoom has become a popular application during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today the company introduced two new features, the Zoom App and Zoom Events.

Citing 9to5Google, Thursday, July 22, Zoom's first feature will combine users' favorite apps with video calling software, and the second will help create virtual events. The Zoom app is the official way to download third-party apps that help users improve their Zoom experience.

"The Zoom app is a critical component in Zoom's transition from app to platform by enabling seamless integration of third-party apps within Zoom," said ZK Research Principal Analyst Zeus Kerravala.

“This feature gives users access to their favorite entertainment, productivity, health, and lifestyle apps while maintaining the Zoom meeting experience — empowering them to achieve more with video communications,” said Kerravala.

The company says apps like Asana, Dropbox Spaces, Dot Collector, Funtivity, Kahoot!, and 50 other apps are available in-store, though users can continue to download services of their choice off-platform, such as the mmHmm app by the Evernote founder.

In an interview with BBC International, Zoom's product lead for Apps, Ross Mayfield, explained how he sees apps being used on Zoom.

"Using apps for things like taking notes, whiteboarding, jotting down action items, and managing your tasks makes you more productive," says Mayfield.

Outside of work, he envisions being able to use apps including video games, casual games, guesswork, board games, card games, things like that, as a way of playing with friends and family.

"Game developers actually make games specifically for team-building exercises, ice-breakers, and sort of maintaining social connectivity in a changing world," said Mayfield.

Meanwhile, the second feature of Zoom Events provides everything users need to build, host, and manage virtual or hybrid events.

"Whether it's a massive sales meeting, a unique customer experience, an internal event, or a company summit, the company says you've covered it," Kerravala says.

With this feature, users can manage and host interactive sessions or one-to-many presentations using Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinars. Users can also build their own event center, create multi-session events.

Not only that, users can provide a chat lobby for the participant network, both inside and outside the session, offer customizable tickets and registrations, host free or paid events, public or private.

Zoom Events users can also anticipate the added ability to host multi-day and multi-track events through concurrent sessions in fall 2021.

However, as Zoom diligently updates its app, it's not clear how many people will continue to use Zoom and similar video conferencing services as the world continues to ease lockdowns following the COVID-19 crisis.

Currently, Zoom is experiencing an exponential rise during the pandemic, recently announcing the acquisition of Five9 cloud-based call center operators for $14.7 billion.

Zoom estimates that sales will increase by more than 40 percent this year, reaching more than $3.7 billion. Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan previously said he was confident that the post-pandemic world would continue to embrace hybrid work models.