Have you ever encountered issues during remote team collaborations and wondered what apps to use instead of Zoom? While the popularity of the video conferencing tool makes it seem like the go-to choice, there are other apps offering similar services as Zoom but with unique features.

This article explores the top Zoom competitors and how to choose the best alternative. We will learn about their features and have a direct comparison to meet your specific team needs such as:

• High-definition Videos and Audio
• Screen Sharing
• Team Chat Feature
• Cloud Storage
• Google Workspace Environment

What is the Best Alternative to Zoom?

After careful review and narrowing down of the top Zoom alternatives for remote team collaboration, we have made our top 5 picks here:

• Cisco Webex
• Google Meet
• Microsoft Teams
• GoTo Meeting
• BlueJeans

1. Cisco Webex Meetings

Webex is another platform like Zoom, but it has enhanced security if you consider the early Zoombombing incidents. Industries with strict data safety requirements can try Zoom privacy tips or switch to Cisco Webex as a safer video conferencing app.

Cisco Webex offers new AI features for high-definition videos and high-quality audio during remote team communications. This makes it a top Zoom alternative for hybrid work environments with features such as:

• Webex Desk and Webex room devices
• Up to 100,000 participants
• Real-time translations in 100+ languages

Downsides of Cisco Webex vs Zoom

• The user interface might be slightly more complex for non-technical users
• The higher enterprise features of Webex make it more expensive for small businesses

Conclusion: Webex is the right Zoom alternative for remote teams who need an enterprise collaborative tool with better security, global reach, and hybrid work support.

2. Google Meet

Google Meet is one of the free apps like Zoom but with longer time limits. Free Google Meet users enjoy 1-hour meetings over the 40-minute duration for Zoom. Meet also seamlessly supports Google Workspace and is free for companies already paying for the integrations.

Business people looking for a video conferencing tool with easy user access can also try Meet as a top Zoom alternative. The web version allows users to quickly join meetings with access to full features without the app. Google Meet is a secure alternative since it uses Google’s security systems.

Downsides of Google Meet vs Zoom

• Google Meet’s 500 participants for Business Plus users is less than Zoom
• The third-party integrations are limited outside the Google workspace

Conclusion: Google Meet is a better Zoom alternative for remote teams already using Google Workspace but requires a team collaboration tool with security and easy access features.

3. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the correct Zoom alternative for teams aiming for more than just a video conferencing app. It is a remote team collaboration platform suitable for hybrid work environments with features such as team chat, file sharing, and project management within the same tool.

Remote teams looking to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) will find Teams a better alternative to Zoom. MS Teams also has an extensive framework of Microsoft patches with advanced data encryption for security.

Downsides of Microsoft Teams vs Zoom

• The extensive features set of MS Teams might take longer to understand for users who are not tech-savvy
• Microsoft Teams is slightly less preferred for hosting large-scale webinars and virtual events
• No free plan

Conclusion: Microsoft Teams is an excellent Zoom alternative for companies requiring a comprehensive collaboration platform with deep integrations into Microsoft 365 and its advanced security features.

4. GoTo Meeting

GoTo Meeting is the closest alternative to Zoom for your remote team collaborations. It offers very similar video conferencing features such as:

• Team Chats
• Screen Sharing
• AI Meeting Assistant
• Cloud Recording
• Transcriptions
• Virtual Backgrounds

Comparing features for features gives a slight advantage to Zoom and most might wonder why GoTo Meeting is on this comparative list. For example, GoTo Meeting can seriously stutter when the network is not great. However, GoTo Meeting has its own competitive advantages over Zoom in its unlimited cloud storage.

Downsides of GoTo Meeting vs Zoom

• Places meeting on hold to receive calls
• Only 250 meeting participants per call

Conclusion: GoTo Meeting is a better Zoom alternative for companies that don’t need to host large meetings and prioritize integrated security patches and cloud storage.

Related Post – Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: A Step-by-Step Comparison

5. BlueJeans by Verizon

While not as popular for video conferencing needs, BlueJeans is another app to use instead of Zoom. The Verizon app is an alternative to Zoom without a time limit and supports interactive features such as:

• Chat
• Q&A
• Live polling
• Up to 150,000 participants

BlueJeans also offers higher technical support service and a longstanding security reputation with real-time fraud detection, end-to-end encryption, and complaints like HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC Type 2.

The smooth calendar integration without leaving the calendar app is another reason to opt for BlueJeans. The better audio and video quality is one of the first features you will observe since it uses Dolby Voice for reduced background noise and visual quality.

Downsides of BlueJeans vs Verizon

• Lesser customization options
• Only paid plans but with a free trial
• Lesser third-party integrations

Conclusion: BlueJeans is the best Zoom alternative for organizations aiming to maximize audience engagement through interactive meeting features and superior audio and sound quality.

Other Zoom Alternatives

Here are some additional apps to use instead of Zoom for your video conferencing and remote team collaborations.

• Whereby
• Jitsi
• Discord
• Zoho Meeting
• Brave Talk

What is the Best Zoom Alternative for You?

Deciding on apps to use instead of Zoom for remote team communications depends on specific collaboration needs. The following factors can help your decision-making process:

• Size of Team: The average number of meeting participants determines the video conferencing app you choose. For example, large teams of over 250 workers cannot switch to GoTo Meeting from Zoom.
• Reasons for Seeking a Zoom Alternative: A team looking for higher definition videos or audio might say Webex is better than Zoom. Another team seeking a simpler user interface with more features on the free plan would say Zoom is better.
• Privacy and Security Expectations: A remote team with members from different continents would need a GDPR-compliant Zoom alternative.
• Third-party App Integration: Confirm that your preferred alternatives to Zoom support your commonly used third-party applications.
• Budget: Estimated budget is a valid concern when deciding alternative apps to use instead of Zoom. You can consider our top Zoom competitor picks that have a free plan to get started.

Conclusion

There are top Zoom alternatives for you depending on your reason for seeking a different video conferencing app with similar functions. We have made our top pick of apps to use instead of Zoom for remote team collaborations. Carefully check through our list to select the application that serves your team better and more effectively.

The post 5 Best Zoom Alternatives for Remote Team Collaboration appeared first on Tech Research Online.

This is the pandemic-stricken era we are dwelling in, and we are trying our best to cope with every challenge thrown at us as much as possible. After health, a factor that has become a real struggle for us is continuing our professional practices at offices. Even though office buildings are reopening back again at a gradual pace, it is evident that there is no rush back as such to physical offices.

In fact, it has become an entirely unpredictable notion. Hence, there exists the concept of hybrid work culture and meetings more strongly than ever before today. A large percentage of businesses from various industries around the globe are reliant on hybrid work strategies. This is significantly backed by video conference technology.

Besides, modern businesses are also utilizing visual tools as a crucial part of their inclusive growth strategy. Advanced video technologies and video marketing strategies are helping many companies survive even in this unmanageable phase brought by time.

The Rising Hybrid Work Trend and What Does It Involve?

So, you must have come across virtual or remote working. But hybrid work culture is much more than that. In the case of hybrid meetings, certain participants join in-person and live from office meeting rooms while the others join remote locations.

These remote locations might include homes, hotels, airports, to just cafes. It is basically a combination of online presentations and lives video streaming of content.

From data sharing, interactivity, recording to in-person interaction, it covers plenty. The need for such a work culture is increasing day by day with the advent of digitization and the current crisis-based situation. All of these would not have been possible without quality video conferencing.

Here are some of the rational justifications that will declare why video conferencing is inevitable to hybrid work!

1. Increased Flexibility

The need for flexibility is high in hybrid work practice. Since companies would operate meetings, conversations, collaboration on an entirely new platform, every member or participant must feel a sense of flexibility.

Video conferencing applications and software lets you and your employees achieve a higher degree of comfort, ease, and job satisfaction. Certain significant surveys even show that hybrid work cultures carried out by quality video conferences have increased work productivity to several percentages for several companies.

More flexibility also encourages workforces to perform things in an agile manner, making decision-making convenient and faster.

Staff from any part of the world can smoothly tune into important and sudden calls and meetings. If you have employees on health recovery or just boarded a plane, they can feel equally connected to the rest of the office.

2. Enriched Organizational Culture

Communications generally initiate enhanced better employee and organizational relationships. As some employees work remotely or outside the premises, they can easily feel isolated, and this can impact the work and its productivity.

Daily messages and emails can lower this particular feeling; however, it is not adequate to make employees feel a vital part of the team.

Without visual technology, business leaders risk prolonging the idea that remote staff is somewhat second-hand citizens often overlooked by the in-house workforce or the management.

Surveys show that several people do feel not much associated as a result of remote working, however, video conferences can be a boon to the problem.

Via extensive video conferencing with AI tools and features like the together mode, the gap between every member can be easily bridged, establishing a strong sense of community.

3. Structured Conferences with Enhanced Collaboration

In hybrid working culture, employees generally call from various places. The defined starts and ending times are often decided before the video call. This lets more intensive conversations with lesser chit-chat.

Also, participants are more likely to be cautious and focused on the discussions of a video conference than repetitive email lists where they can easily miss out on the intent or meaning behind the messages.

The participants are also able to see the significant visual cues when it comes to the body language and gestures of partners, colleagues, and consumers.

The expressions of concern, understanding, or satisfaction can be addressed more conveniently than that of the array of IMs, emails, or voicemails, making the video conference the closest aspect to being there.

4. Better Wellbeing for Every Staff Member

Video conferencing is not merely a tool made to keep employees’ work properly away from the office. With time, video landed as a significant lifeline for remote employees who had the need to feel backed and engaged by their team.

Many video vendors experimented with almost everything from making meetings more interesting, using virtual backgrounds to video filters, and they have worked wonder make yours!

Gone are the days when you communicate with your employees with just lists of emails and texts. With advanced visual conference tools, you can add a more human touch to your interaction and collaboration.

It is almost like face-to-face communication, which solves half the problems making your employees feel more a part of the work, secure and open. You can also integrate different tools with bots in video conference calls.

This will keep employers posted about their overall issues and well-being. As we roll with all our uncertain working days into the upcoming future, ensuring workforce wellbeing will keep companies at again.

Conclusion

Occupations in information technology, finance, or media, a range of industries use high-end video conference tools to initiate successful remote and hybrid meetings and work. This trend of using visual technology is definitely here to stay as the future of business.

Today, video marketing is gaining massive importance as it is helping in inducing quality and easy-initiated videos for promoting products, services, brands, communication with clients, or building consumer rapport.

Likewise, video conferencing has become the foundation of hybrid work culture in modern businesses. There are a booming number of companies, irrespective of size, scope, and scale adapting to advanced video-based technologies to add a competitive edge to their business. Companies are considering spending on video technology more like a brilliant future investment rather than mere expenditures. It is time you explore it as well.

The post Why Video Conferencing Technology Is Must for Hybrid Work Setup? appeared first on Tech Research Online.

In times of pandemics, remote management has ruined the lives of many managers. It has become hard coordinating a team across multiple office locations or managing full-time remote workers be it a great manager or a great HR.

Today, the best business leaders have to deal with a new set of challenges. Nearly 15% of remote employee managers received no training.

In this blog, we are going to share with you some effective ways for remote management for the leading hybrid or fully remote teams.

Strategies for Effective Remote Management

• Use Technology to Your Advantage
• Use 5-15 Reports
• Trust Employees and Not Micromanage
• Encourage your Team to Work Remotely
• Establish Transparency
• Be Open to Feedback
• Meet in-Person at Least Once Per Quarter

1. Leverage Technology

Today’s modern managerial business tools no longer leave the room to worry about constantly pestering management.

One such tool that has the potential to add value to any team or organization is  Slack. Microsoft’s Slack is a powerful, cloud-based, collaboration software that leverages features from budgeting to communication channels to project management.

The software also has the potential to organize and secure a team platform. Hence, it can provide the ability to document important business decisions to messaging coworkers to posting project milestones, to posting daily status updates, to hosting shared files.

Last year, with remote work, Slack has proven itself to be is an incredible resource for leaders.

Remote or hybrid teams can also leverage video conferencing software as a substitute for in-person interactions, meetings, or daily stand-ups. Some popular free and paid software include  Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and  Loom. They allow you to record status updates and other forms of asynchronous communications.

Staying connected at one or different locations allows managers to have better flexibility and gives them the ability to keep up with the team’s daily needs.

2. Use 5-15 Reports

The  5-15 report methodology is another useful tool that managers must have in their toolbox when it comes to remote work policies. 5-15 report methodology can read reports in five minutes and write in fifteen minutes.

The ultimate goal of this report is to provide employees with a weekly summary of accomplishments, challenges, priorities, roadblocks, and lessons learned.

Such reports have the potential to simplify the management process. They are especially useful for managers that are keeping track of multiple employees spread across different locations.

This method also provides the benefit of encouraging employees to become more focused and introspective on their work.

3. Trust Employees Not Micromanage

Sometimes managers can become anxious or super involved regarding their employees due to their human psychology. Such feelings might be enhanced only when workers are not present in the office.

However, in the case of micromanagement or monitoring, it is likely to have resentment from direct reports.

The employees are a talented pool of human resource that desire a job which will offer a lot of challenges and the opportunity to contribute. Instead of relying completely on reports, honing these desires instead of harping on detail can be a sign of a strong leader.

4. Encourage Team to Work Remotely

Managers can save thousands of dollars per month just by reducing office space by pushing employers towards remote work. It will also increase their productivity and boost their job satisfaction.

Forbes says that  90% of employees who work remotely plan to do so indefinitely. They are also happier overall compared to those without the option. Besides, if you don’t provide remote working opportunities, your employees may leave and decide to work for freelance platforms, such as Upwork vs Fiverr.

Besides, individuals have different needs and allowing certain employees to work sometimes in the office and at home per week may be a strong alternative to a full-time remote position.

All the employees are team members will appreciate the work flexibility provided by the company every month.

5. Try to Bring Transparency

The effective remote manager must learn to communicate openly and keep employees informed. They should have the crucial information despite the levels they are working on.

Managers need to communicate their expectations for work performance, corporate policies, and communication before establishing any remote arrangement. This gives both parties a head start with a clear understanding and without a communication barrier.

For instance, a manager in New York may have the culture shock firsthand while supervising a remote worker from the Midwest. They will be unfamiliar with corporate policies such as time-off, sick days, or even shortening business hours.

A manager may want to be more flexible if a remote employee from a northern state has lost their Wi-Fi while some organizations can be rigid regarding such policies. In such a case, both the manager and employee need to have a clear understanding of mutual expectations.

6. Be Open to Feedback

In every workplace environment, employees should feel comfortable receiving criticism from their managers. To create such as environment, a manager must learn to give and receive feedback from their employees.

Even though management skills apply to all businesses, they are becoming more amplified due to remote work arrangements. Since it is challenging to stay on the same page, a manager must know how to listen to their employees wisely.

One way to show employees that you are open to feedback is by directly ask them for one. It will also allow your direct report to see that you are actively seeking feedback and allow for an open dialogue.

Besides, having an open conversation will eliminate frustrations and friendly feedback is essential to remote culture employee happiness and satisfaction.

7. Meet In-Person Once Every Quarter

Lastly, remote managers should also keep in mind that in-person interactions are also instrumental to succussed in a business relationship.

Remote managers should strive to meet at least once per quarter with all of their remote employees. This will also preserve their strong relationship and prevent employees from feeling disconnected.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have covered the top strategies you need to know for effective remote management. Follow this at your workplace to get the best productivity from remote work while keeping your employees happy and satisfied.

If you have a strategy that worked for you, do share your favorite strategy of remote management in the comments below.

The post 7 Best Strategies for Effective Remote Management appeared first on Tech Research Online.

The coronavirus pandemic was a lesson for every one of us. Lockdowns, quarantines, and remote work have not only impacted our lifestyle but also justified us feeling isolated.

We have all been experiencing isolation and while we work from home many feel like virtual networking can be done in this situation.

Well, if you are a person who thinks or feels the same. You need to probably think again. In this competitive world, everyone needs to expand their professional network continually. This can either happen naturally or with a lot of wholesome effort. So, don’t let yourself get stuck in the same old social network.

The only thing you need to remember in networking, according to the expert  J. Kelly Hoey, are the three Ps of networking: 1) people, 2) people, and 3) people.

Networking has become an important part during the time of the pandemic. Some of the best networking done has been online and while working remotely.

We have moved past the days when shaking hands or meeting in person was required to form a meaningful connection. Nowadays, it’s more convenient to form a connection virtually with fellow professionals who exist online.

15 Best Tips: How Virtual Networking Works

1. Virtual Networking Events

We are stuck at home. Even buying groceries seems like a task and in such an environment events are a far cry.

But, with technology, companies and organizations are collaborating to organize virtual events. Such events can be excellent for your virtual networking and can be attended from the safety of your homes.

COVID-19 has opened up an opportunity to attend all kinds of webinars and conferences, most of them for free. These online events dive deep into all types of work, from all types of experts – marketing, pivoting one’s business, leadership, and financial topics.

These events give you a great platform to learn and the best is that some of them are specifically for networking.

For instance, Zoom webinar allows participants to form intimate connections through breakout rooms.

Use them for networking, and you never know who you’ll find. Blockchain And Virtual Reality Becoming Reality.

2. Virtual Coworking

Virtual coworking debuted only around 2019 or at least became powerful around that time.

However, virtual coworking spaces have become one of the highlights.

You can join already-formed coworking spaces or you can host one it’s up to you. Here you have a huge chance of networking as you will be introduced to new people during working sessions online.

If you’re interested in starting your own virtual coworking session, consider it as the seed that can potentially start a tree of networking for you. There you can invite friends and in turn, ask each of them to invite a friend or colleague working remotely.

3. Social Media to Form Connections

You might have heard people say, “Yeah, we met on Instagram”. Do you think it sounds crazy?

Well, if you do, then don’t, this might very well be the networking style of the future.

Many of us are certainly making friends over the Internet and it is no longer a ridiculous thing anymore. Social media has become a hotspot to form professionals and use their accounts as portfolios.

But before you start with it, you need to make sure that your social media account demonstrates who you are. You need to be transparent about yourself and your business goals.

If you are someone who prefers to keep their social media private, you can start by creating a new public account for your business.

From there, you can then use your business account to connect and learn about your audience and engage with them in a meaningful way.

4. Join Instagram Live

Instagram Live has become a new webinar and the best part it’s hassle-free and at your fingertips. After the lockdown, celebrities, influencers, and even business professionals have become more active on their grams.

Lives can be an amazing opportunity for you to interact with the people you believe in. For instance, when a professional goes “live” on Instagram you can ask them field questions from the audience. This will allow you to ask them how they got their start, their recommendations, how to move a career forward and so much more.

At the end of their live session, you can also shoot them emails and take follow-up. This might open doors for a strong connection, especially if you contribute meaning to the chat and ask thought-provoking questions.

5. Follow up of Webinars

We dive into detail for something that we have already discussed. You can join webinars on all sorts consistently from professionals, but to connect to the professional skillfully you need more.

Through the webinar, make notes and if possible, write down a question that might add to the conversation. This might seem like a small step but it can take you a long way.

At the end of each webinar, you should bring your points to the table and ask the questions you jotted down earlier. In case, the speaker is on a time crunch and couldn’t answer all your questions, they’ll probably give out their personal email to continue the conversation afterward.

You can later contact them for further discussion and this might lead to a healthy virtual network, or give you a chance to connect with an entrepreneur on LinkedIn.

The worst that can happen when you happen to reach out is you’ll end up not receiving a response. But it is the best way to try and network from home.

6. Use your Alumni Community

We all have some of the best high school and college memories. But, now, it’s time to make those years useful. Network with your ex-mates has become easier than you realize thanks to LinkedIn.

For example, when searching for a job on LinkedIn, the website also shows you “9 alumni of your university work at this company”.

Take some time out and reach out to a few of the alumni suggestions. You can politely ask them for an inbound referral to their company’s hiring managers.

More often than not, fellow alumni don’t say no to such types of favors. But remember, this works both ways, so if you received a similar message from someone who graduated from your college, you’d probably feel the need to help out!

This method of networking is worthwhile and works like a charm. We wholeheartedly recommend it as it takes no effort and can be life-changing.

7. Interviews Over Zoom

Recently, virtual/remote informational interviews have become a thing and maybe you hadn’t yet considered asking for them. They are popular nowadays and many industries are openly welcoming such type of outreach.

In an informational interview, you interview either a professional or a leader in an organization. This might be either because you’re interested in working with them, or if you’re looking for a career pivot.

If you work remotely or live far from the person that you want to interview. In that case, we will highly recommend you schedule an informational interview with that person. For that, you should consider asking them or their company for an informational interview over Zoom.

8. Attend a Virtual Job Fair

Many of you might still have no clue about a virtual job fair. Don’t worry, even we got to know about it a few months ago.

When we first signed up for a virtual job fair, we received an itinerary and schedules of five different companies that will be presenting to the virtual job fair attendees.

This was specifically based on the types of companies and the types of positions they were hiring. You can select companies and sign up with them for the continual webinar platform and hear from the hiring managers. They will be interviewed by hosts about their company’s culture, goals, and types of qualities required in a candidate.

We are in the era of remote jobs and remote companies, to adapt to the “new normal” people are switching to taking remote interviews.

Another point you need to remember is to always follow up with the hosts or hiring managers if their contact information is made available.

9. Host a Webinar

When you can’t find a way, make one!

Webinars are amazing and it’s even amazing to host one. Everyone has something to offer and everyone has something to learn.

You can combine your professional skill set and offer it through a simple webinar.

Why was this a great way to network?

It works because you will not only be introduced to the leaders but afterward, you will receive many professional connections of people who had attended your webinar.

10. Join Professional Facebook Groups

You can find a Facebook group for everything. So why not for professionals like you and me?

You can easily find Facebook groups for essentially every topic which can provide you with value and help you answer some answered questions.

Another thing this group helps with other than professional topics are job posts or freelancer opportunities with projects.

11. Join the Lunch Club

Lunch clubs are a decade-old concept that still works tremendously. They can connect you with like-minded professionals.

To join one, you just need to input your personal information and information about who you are looking to connect with. They will automatically connect you with them or send requests.

12. Host an Online Social Event

Some companies consist of a small staff while some companies may have hundreds, if not thousands of employees. At the end of the day, you are bound to not know them all.

If you want to network within your company, you can host a webinar, a gameshow over Zoom, or a speed-networking event.

This can prove to be a great way as there are so many ideas to try and you can always meet someone who’s on staff. This can be a great way to stay connected remotely within organizations.

13. Use Reddit

Reddit is a great way to connect with some of the best minds in the industry. The website has so much to offer and if you are a newbie, we’ll say get yourself familiarized with it. Here, you can post questions and get answers to them, you can even share photos and information.

This website can be incredibly helpful, as it opens you to network and connect with people around the world. You can also publicly give opinions or help solve a problem.

They also have Reddit forums that allow you to talk about different professions. This way you can connect with other professionals in the same field and gained substantial knowledge.

Reddit is an amazing platform with an extensive amount of potential. So, dive in and try it out for networking and expanding your connections from home.

14. Browse Through YouTube and Connect with YouTube

Through the years, YouTube has become a very big platform. However, it has been underestimated by many as a one-way communication channel.

But it is not the truth, the truth is that the platform has to offer much more.

For instance, you can watch helpful professional videos on YouTube and then reach out to the YouTuber by commenting or emailing them.

Connecting with them via YouTube, LinkedIn, and mail can be great as these experts are typically well-connected. You can further ask professionals in the field who’d be happy to help you with some type of project, specific knowledge, creative outlet, or further connections.

People are always looking to connect, so, it never hurts to reach out to YouTubers via the email addresses in their “About” section.

15. Use Your Network

Life is constantly changing and you might forget the many people you know. Well, admit it or not but it’s true. For us all, it’s hard to keep track of who works where or who changed careers.

If you want to learn a need a new skill or find a new job, it’s always better to start small. You can reach out to your immediate family and close friends. If they are not able to help you then you can move on and ask your close friends and their networks the same question.

This way you might wind up with a meaningful connection for a lifetime.

FAQs

1. What Is the Purpose of Virtual Networking?

The purpose of virtual networking is to meet new people in your profession or industry and establish mutually beneficial connections. The goal of professional virtual networking is to build a professional network with a group of people who help you with favors and have some favors done by you.

2. How does Virtual Networking Work?

Virtual networking works by establishing your credibility and interest in the same profession.

The post 15 Tips on How Virtual Networking Works   appeared first on Tech Research Online.

We are living in the digital age and most businesses rely on technology to run their businesses efficiently. Recently, we have seen many questions about collaboration tools. Since they are very important for any business, we are going to clear out the confusion around it.

The Most Frequently Asked Questions on Collaboration Tools (FAQs)

1. What Are Collaboration Tools?  

Imagine a whiteboard in your conference room where your team gathers and brainstorm idea by collaborating. Collaboration tools perform a similar task but digitally. In short, they create a space where the whole team can world by collaboration.    

There are three types of collaboration tools:  

Collaboration Tools for Communication  

• E-Mail  
• Voicemail  
• Instant messaging (IM)  
• VoIP (voice over IP) / video call  

Collaboration Tools for Coordination  

• Online Calendars  
• Time trackers  
• Spreadsheets  

Collaboration Tools for Cooperation  

• Video conferencing  
• IM teleconferencing  

2. How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Improve Team Communication?  

To improve team communication with the help of collaboration tools, follow the steps below:  

• Select a space where your team can work comfortably.   
• Help your team develop crucial collaboration and teamwork skills  
• Share all the resources, assign tasks, and maintain quality standards to boost productivity  
• Communicate effectively with your team members  
• Create an environment where your team can comfortably communicate and share ideas  
• Keep reminding your team to focus on objectives and the outcomes of your current task  
• Who uses online collaboration tools?  

Everyone can/should use collaboration tools from manager to team leads.  

3. Is Microsoft Teams A Collaboration Tool?  

Yes, Microsoft Teams is a collaboration app. It can help you collaborate with your team, stay organized, share important resources, make phone calls, host meetings, and have conversations seamlessly.   

Also Read: A-Z Tech BuzzWords in 2021 that You Should Know

4. Is Onedrive a Collaboration Tool?  

Yes, OneDrive is a content collaboration service. It is included within Office 365 and allows users to share content, store files, and collaborate on documents.  

5. Where Should I Use Collaboration Tools? / When Should I Use Collaboration Tools?

Collaboration tools can be used everywhere from creating spaces for collaboration to communication. For instance, they can be used for direct messaging, video conferencing, online forums, and online group tasks.   

6. What Are Collaboration Tools for Business? What Are Some Examples of Collaboration Tools? 

Best Collaboration Tools for Business are:  

• Google drive  
• Microsoft 365  
• Slack  
• Asana  
• Podio  
• Ryver  
• Trello 
• Flock  

7. What Are Social Collaboration Tools?  

As we know the internet is an open place, information is shared with everyone. However, if you want to keep your information private and secure Social collaboration tools are your answer. They are networking platforms that give employees privacy for communication and collaboration.   

8. What Are the Benefits of Collaboration Tools?  

• Ease in Tracking Workflows   
• Better Collaboration in Distributed Teams  
• Better Overall Communication  
• Improved Employee Participation and Engagement  
• Increased overall Office Efficiency  
• Better Access to Information  
• Access to Updates in Real-time  
• Cross-functional teams  

9. What Are Virtual Collaboration Tools?  

Virtual collaboration tools are similar to other collaboration tools. They have 2 or more parties that are involved virtually. They do not physically interact and always communicate through different technologies.  

They use virtual collaboration tools for information transfer in face-to-face meetings, communicating virtually through visual, verbal, written, and digital means.  

10. What Are Microsoft Collaboration Tools?  

Microsoft Collaboration Tools are:  

• Office 365 Groups  
• Microsoft Teams  
• One Drive for Business  
• SharePoint  
• Office 365 Video  
• Outlook Email  
• Skype for Business  
• Delve Boards  
• Yammer  

11. What Is the Best Online Collaboration Tool?  

Google Drive, Microsoft 365, Slack, Asana, Podio, Ryver, Trello, and Flock are some of the best tools for collaboration. However, to decide which one works best for you, you need to choose as per your business needs.    

12. What Is the Most Popular Workplace Collaboration?  

According to Statista, the top five collaboration tools for remote work in the US are Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangout, Slack, and Skype. They say that more than 36% or one-third of employees used Zoom, followed by Microsoft Teams with 19% when working remotely.  

13. What Is Required for Using Collaboration Tools? 

• Cloud-based technology 
• Workflow management tools 
• Data visualization tools 
• Workflow tracker

14. What Are the Pros and Cons of Online Collaboration Tools? 

Pros: Productivity, drastically reduces downtime, efficient communication, highly cost-effective, brings diversity to collaboration, and sensitive data is secure. 

Cons: Personal contact is reduced, licensing models limit access to selected users, and only trusted platforms offer security and safety. 

15. Why Are Microsoft Teams Bad? 

Integration with Outlook Calendar and Microsoft Teams Status is really bad. 

16. Is Microsoft Team Free? 

Yes, Microsoft Teams is completely free to use.  

17. How Do You Collaborate With a Team? 

If you want to work together in Microsoft Teams follow below steps: 

• Select the plus, next to the tabs 
• Choose a workspace and type a name 
• Select Post  
• Select Save. 
• You have successfully created space for collaboration 

Conclusion

Here, we have covered some of the frequently asked questions on collaboration tools. We hope this article has helped you understand a little bit about them.  

If you have any questions, leave a comment down below and we will answer them.  

The post Everything About FAQs on Collaboration Tools appeared first on Tech Research Online.

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has confined people to the safety of their homes. To keep businesses running people have resorted to working from home. However, to bring out maximum productivity businesses must collaborate.

This has made video conferencing software a vital technology for both businesses and their employees. It has become a key component of how many businesses are continuing to function.

Other than the obvious, as the idea of lockdown is to eliminate social contacts, schools are not able to keep teaching, families, and friends cannot stay connected, and so many others.

This has led to a huge surge in adoption rates for video conferencing applications such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meets, or Zoom. These applications are bridging the customer’s needs by leveraging visual communication as a collaboration feature.

In the recent few months, video conferencing sellers have seen a rise in user traffic. It is changing these tools to compete with one another and makes things difficult for buyers.

These video conferencing vendors have even adapted to freemium or special offers deployment to help entice new customers.

So let’s take a look at how these three most popular video conferencing apps (Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom) works and their limitations.

Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: Availability

Today, video conferences are not limited to just PCs and laptops. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are all available for Android and iOS-based mobile devices.

However, both Microsoft teams and Google Meet can also be accessed directly through other search engines such as chrome or safari without any requirement for additional plugins.

You can also participate or schedule a meeting just by visiting its link on a browser. Zoom, on its part, doesn’t allow users to host a meeting through a browser; nevertheless, you can still join a meeting.

Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: Meeting Time, Participants Limit, and Media and Screen Sharing

Google Meet will be launching its free version in weeks to come while Zoom and Microsoft Teams already have free versions. However, freemium offerings of all the free versions of all three have some limitations.

The free version of Google Meet offers 60 minutes meeting limit along, however, with the ongoing crises users will be able to use Google Meet for meetings of unlimited length till 30 September.

It also provides screen sharing and recording capabilities, real-time captioning, and scheduling.

The free version of Microsoft Teams offers unlimited video and audio calls, chat messages, file and screen sharing, and a feature that lets you collaborate on Office documents.

Zoom, in its free version, provides a 40 minutes limit on group meetings. Both Google Meet and Zoom allow hosting meetings with up to 100 participants while Microsoft Teams allows more than 100. The two also enable real-time captions during the call.

Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: Security

Google Meet and Microsoft have a significantly better stand when it comes to security than Zoom. Zoom has lately been under the limelight for security-related concerns. It even released a new upgrade called Zoom 5.0 to address some of them.

Google Meet stands at the top when it comes to security as it supports multiple 2-step verification options. It also adheres to IETF security standards for Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS).

Furthermore, Meet generates a unique encryption key for every meeting which is then transmitted in an encrypted and secured RPC. Similar to Google Meets, Microsoft Teams includes several layers of security including encrypting all meetings to help keep information safe.

It also offers packages that let you enable two-step authentication, making it harder for non-invited attendees to enter a meeting. In strong contrast, Zoom uses the AES 256-bit GCM encryption standard which was touted across all accounts from May 30.

Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: Interface

Zoom is said to have truly excelled when it comes to user interface and experience. It is also popular for its Gallery view display that accommodates up to 49 participants on a single screen.

However, Google Meet has recently provided a similar interface by enabling an expanded tiled layout that shows up to 16 participants.

On the other hand, Microsoft Teams only offer a limited viewing capacity of 4 participants on-screen regardless of the number of people in the meeting.

Furthermore, recently, Google also added a low-light mode to adjust video based on lighting conditions which are limited to mobile users.

Microsoft Teams offers full Office 365 applications into Teams, which makes the full set of workstream collaboration offering a broader surface area of usage. We can conclude, Microsoft Teams offers a much better user interface.

Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: Recording

Zoom allows users to record meetings in their free version which can be stored in the local system. On the other hand, Google Meet and Teams don’t allow recording of virtual meetings on their free versions. However, in the case of paid users of both G-Suite Enterprise and Office 365 meetings can be recorded seamlessly.

In the case of Google Meet, the recording feature will be available for free users until September 30. But, this will be a Microsoft Teams video conference limit.

Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom are both phenomenal applications when it comes to video and audio calling.

Related Post – 5 Best Zoom Alternatives for Remote Team Collaboration

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have tried to compare all the features of these popular applications, however, selecting a perfect fit for your organization depends less on the best qualities and more on your business needs. 

We have tried to put forth the Microsoft teams video conference limit, Google meets limits, and Zooms too. In this time, collaboration has become more crucial than ever before and these tools are only helping us become closer than ever.

But, when it comes to choosing the right tools for you, the needs of your businesses will be beside which one is the best for you. 

The post Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet: A Step by Step Comparison appeared first on Tech Research Online.

We all know some of the largest companies in the world belong to the tech industry.

Ever wondered how companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon grew into giants?

What do you think is common in all their success stories?

If you are guessing that they all started in a garage! I am sorry but that’s the wrong answer.

Well, what sets them apart from other companies is their ability to combine marketing and technology.

Marketing has becomes the backbone of companies. You can literally put companies into two groups one with amazing marketing and others who lack in that area.

If you are confused as to where your marketing goals and strategy are lacking continue reading. We are going to give you a little overview of MarTech i.e. Marketing and Technology and help you upgrade your marketing strategy.

So, open your brain both right and justify to creatively think and critically analyze some amazing MarTech tool solution and features.

Martech is much more than just a platform. If you are crafting a marketing strategy or even starting a new business and want success then MarTech is your go-to.

Today, businesses are dealing with Martech one way or the other due to the increasing adoption of digital communication globally. MarTech helps bridge the gap between them for a steady pace between the expectations of a customer and the marketers.

But, you don’t need to have it or use it because everyone is using it. Before going for a MarTech stack just take a moment and sit down with your teams, discuss your need, current, and future requirement, and then list out what you want.

Now, there is one more thing, one of the most common mistakes I have seen is people sometimes get confused between Martech & Adtech. While they both are a bit similar there is only a fragile line separating them.

For instance, AdTech, the advertising technology is meant to help the advertisers as well as the ad agencies to create, run, and measure online advertising campaigns across platforms. On the other hand, Martech allows users to run and manage online marketing campaigns on different platforms.

A 2019 research has revealed that 57% of the world’s population spends approximately 6.5 hours online every day.

Companies leverage the suite of these tools for enhancing marketing processes, which is known as the MarTech Stack.

List of Martech Tool

1. Google AdWords

There is only one key to scale your business that is you need to reach out to new customers. And, the easiest way marketers opt to reach out is through advertising.

Advertising has become inseparable with marketing and Google AdWords is my personal favorite. Today, despite Facebook’s massive growth, Google AdWords remains the most widely used advertising platform in the world.

In fact, for most entry-level digital marketing professionals getting certified in AdWords is seen as a necessity.

AdWords packs a punch in the form of intent and intent is next to customer acquisition.

I have seen marketers rushing to advertise on Facebook, but what they fail to realize is that their people don’t want to see ads or find products. Instead, they want to engage with family, friends, and many are watch some funny videos.

On the contrary, AdWords helps you see what people are actively searching via keywords to find solutions to their problems. So, you can skip the funnel process and start selling.

Google’s AdWords packs reach. Google handles over 40,000 searches every second and over 3.5 billion each day. This tool can help you advertise on YouTube which has 1.5 billion monthly active users.

In terms of support, you have access to dedicated account managers that will help run and optimize your campaigns.

Additionally, its dashboard is extremely easy to use with a diverse demographic targeting and custom audiences.

In the past few years, AdWords has become the king of PPC advertising and even in the coming time, it will continue to dominate its user base.

2. HubSpot

If you are a marker, it is highly likely that you have already heard of HubSpot.

HubSpot is a marketing suite that can help your marketing tool with content management, data, analytics, customer support, social media, and advertising.

It is designed with the inbound marketing methodology with the purpose to provide marketers with essential tools and insights to boost conversions.

HubSpot has an ever-evolving landscape. For instance, now they offer pop-up and chatbot features that can be added to any website. This can be very helpful in improving and streamlining the customer experience.

We all know how important it is to have proper internal and external communication. Today, streamlining communication has become another problem faced by marketers.

HubSpot offers to solve this problem by integrating and collaborating with other third-party tools enabling teams to improve communication. Some great examples of such tools include Slack and G Suite.

It can also be integrated with hundreds of other third-party apps allowing marketers to easily expand their MarTech ecosystems.

3. WordPress and Elementor

You’re going to need a website. Chances are, you’ll want to go with WordPress, and justifiably so. The world’s most popular CMS enables users to create the most comprehensive and dynamic possible. But if you can’t code, operating a WordPress website (far less creating one) is going to prove virtually impossible.

That’s where Elementor proves its weight in gold. Used by more than 7% of all the world’s websites, Elementor empowers marketers to create a stunning, converting WordPress site without having to write a single line of code.

You can choose from a large variety of responsive templates to fit your business’s every need, and easily customize content and design. Customs forms and stunning popups are additional features Elementor users can leverage to increase sales. It gets better, though. You can now rely one Elmentor to host your website as well!

With Elementor Cloud Website, web creators can craft a stunning, comprehensive website that will be hosted using best-in-class WordPress hosting starting at $99 per year.

4. Salesforce

We all know the importance of managing customer relations. It is the key to growing your business. Also, studies say that it’s five times less expensive to keep an existing customer than to sell to a new one.

But, it is also important to know that just because someone bought from you once doesn’t mean that they’ll stick around forever. For every marketer, upselling and reselling to existing customers presents a big challenge.

For a successful resell and upsell you need to manage and nurture the customer relationship.

Salesforce is an amazing tool that recently topped Fortune’s list of 100 best companies in 2018. It’s one of the most customizable CRMs that has been battle-tested.

With its AppExchange, it offers integrations for just about every use case. For instance, you can find, locate, and utilize different applications such as WordPress.

Another amazing aspect of this tool is its dashboards which are full of comprehensive data that can help you to build customers.

Salesforce is the best in businesses it comes to customer relationship management.

5. Hootsuite

Today, everyone is on social media. This also means that it is the platform where you can reach out to maximum potential customers.

Now, if you are a market you already know this. Social media is every marketer’s best friend.

In 2020, it is estimated that there are around 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide. This number is projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.

This presents a huge opportunity for marketers to reach out the new customers with multi-channel strategies. While social media might seem lucrative, managing it might turn out to be a nightmare for marketing teams.

Handling social media is a full-time job. You need to consistently post and engage by liking and commenting which is just a small part.

To make it all a little easier, smart marketers can leverage platforms like Hootsuite. If you want to make the best out of your social media, Hootsuite is a necessity as it can help manage your social media presence.

For instance, the function of Facebook Advertising is primarily to speak to your customers, Hootsuite can help you listen and engage.

Another problem that you might face in the long run is managing multiple channels at the same time which can be very very difficult.

But, Hootsuite solves that problem too by managing all your social channels in one place. It provides a unique and interactive dashboard where your team can easily monitor unlimited streams of all the social media channels.

Here, you will also have the option to schedule, optimize, and interact with consumers in minutes.

The dashboard also integrates analytics which can help pull-up reports for your marketing and sales teams.

Hootsuite solves the problems of every marketer by integrating and providing the full range of social media tools in one.

6. Marketo

Today, with so many channels and platforms marketers need a great automation tool to thrive.

In fact, 91% of companies that use marketing automation find it to be an integral piece of marketing strategy.

Marketo is one of the best automation tools you can find out there. It’s designed for marketers, especially if you are into B2B and want to get an idea of how your prospects are interacting with your channels

Marketo is a necessity for any team that is running multiple channels for customer acquisition. The platform is built on the same core platform like Salesforce.

The tools have an easy-to-use modular system that features automation, real-time personalization, consumer engagement marketing, and management.

This means you have the flexibility to customize everything for your specific business needs.

The most amazing thing is that the platform allows you to clone entire programs so you don’t have to create new ones such as landing pages and email marketing.

It also uses advanced reporting for detailed customer analytics which helps compare across channels.

Also, Marketo has the ability to integrate with just about any other MarTech tool.

Marketo is designed especially for a team that attacks multiple channels and needs heavy equipment.

7. Slack

Communication and collaboration across teams and departments are the foundation of any business. The benefits of both are tested and approved by many pieces of research.

HubSpot says the more aligned your sales and marketing team is, the better overall growth you’ll achieve.

Slack helps you streamline your overall communication with all of your team in one place. With Slack, you can message individuals directly or create a group or create channels for topical and organized conversations.

They also offer integrations with almost all tools out there, including Trello, GitHub, Google Drive, Dropbox, Heroku, and countless other MarTech tools. The list doesn’t end.

Slack can help you keep team communication stays fluid.

Conclusion:

In this blog, we have tried to give you some of the best MarTech tools solutions, and features for acing your marketing.

However, remember that even the best MarTech tools might not able to give you results if you don’t streamline your marketing process.

So, before choosing a tool, make sure you have a marketing strategy. Then you can choose a tool that can fulfill the needs of your marketing strategy.

Lastly, these are so many other and cheaper alternatives for these tools. If you don’t have the budget, take a deep breath, and do your research, you will definitely find one as per your needs.

The post 7 Best Martech Tool Stack for Fruitful Result appeared first on Tech Research Online.

Very typical Monday morning, you are having a meeting with some colleagues on a new project from your kitchen counter. Kids are having video classes in the living room while your spouse is busy at another meeting in the study. The meeting ends and you close your laptop and start scrolling through messages into a loop of procrastination while you run on low motivation.

Work from home has become a new norm but it hasn’t been easy for most of us. We are having meetings and attending conferences from the safety of our homes. According to the Clutch survey, 66% of the U.S. workers are currently working from home from 17% before the pandemic.

When asked if they would prefer working from home even after the pandemic, 39% of workers said that they would rather work in an office, while 40% said that they would rather work remotely. About 21% have no preference.

There are also several advantages of remote working which are encouraging more and more companies to permanently adopt this model. According to Gartner CFO Survey, 74% intend to shift employees to remote work permanently while nearly three in four CFOs plan to shift at least 5% of on-site employees to permanently remote positions post-COVID-19.

Remote working is providing several opportunities for both employees and companies. However, there are several issues which employees are facing.

These problems affect productivity as employees more and more time procrastinating.

List of Best Productivity Apps For Working From Home

App to help you eliminate distractions

1. Freedom

This is your first step in fighting procrastination. Social media notifications are one of the leading causes of distractions as these apps and websites are scientifically designed to keep you hooked. They can cost your ability to focus, productivity, and general well-being.

Freedom productivity app blocks websites and apps to give you more control over your time and attention.

Features:

• Advanced scheduling for blocking
• Customizable blocking options
• Ability to sync your settings across devices
• Option to save and annotate your session history
• Unlimited Sessions & Devices
• Freedom Pause Extension for breaking browsing habits
• Freedom Insight Extension for time tracking
• Freedom Limit Extension for Daily limits

This app provides both free trial and then paid subscription on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. Freedom productivity app can help you avoid distraction and take control of your life.

2. Pomodoro

The Pomodoro technique is a method for time management that was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. This technique breaks down work into intervals separated by short breaks.

Pomodoro gives you a timer that cycles between periods of work and rests with a built-in way to manage all related tasks. The special features of this app are:

Features:

• Design the todo list
• Full workflow management
• Ability to write, organizes, and schedule tasks
• Access to work history and statistics
• Generate timesheet reports

The app has both free and premium versions that are available on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. It is one of the best apps to work from home to maximize your online productivity.

App to help you manage your time

3. Toggl

Toggl is a time tracking app which helps you track how much time you’re really spending on tasks. It is one of the best cross platform productivity apps. The app was initially designed for remote workers with the idea of helping them make sure that they were billing accurately for projects.

Features:

• Tracking individual and collective tasks
• Pinpointing tasks that are taking more time
• Issues that are slowing you
• Designed team plans for businesses
• Day-by-day breakdown on Toggl reports
• A handy overview of time spent in the form of Charts
• One-click time tracking
• Works online and offline

The app design also works cross-platform just about on every operating system and online to help you access it wherever and whenever you need it. So, Toggl is your go to apps to work from home.

App to help you organize work

4. Google Drive

As our personal and professional life clashes managing and keeping your document organized has become messy. Google Drive provides you with 15 GB of free storage where you can properly store and organize your files.

Features:

• Auto-sync all files
• Directly save from Chrome to Google Drive
• Save Gmail Attachments
• Convert PDFs to Docs
• Easy Sharing with Others
• Scan Documents
• Work Offline
• Upgrade to Google One from Drive

This app has both free and premium versions that are available for all devices including Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. This is one of the best apps for work productivity by organizing your tasks and documents.

App to help you feel calm and motivated

5. Simple Habits

We are constantly dealing with stress which is ultimately giving rise to the more mental health problem. According to an American Psychological Association study in 2015 – stress in the U.S. continues to increase modestly, but extreme stress levels appear to be rising aggressively. Also, stress isn’t just for the aging population; but millennials are more extremely stressed than they historically were.

Simple habit helps you squeeze a little time to help you practice mindfulness and increase your concentration power. It helps you use guided meditation for stress and anxiety relief.

Features:

• Library of short meditation sessions
• Different sessions for each stressful
• 5-minute mindfulness meditation plans
• Different teachers and different techniques

The app offers both free and premium versions that are available on any browser, Android, and iOS. This is the best app for work productivity while staying calm.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have shared 5 best productivity apps for working from home that can help you bring more online productivity while you work from home. You can find several alternatives for each tool in the market; however, it is important to follow steps as they can help you increase online productivity and improve work-life balance.

• Finding and eliminating the root cause of distraction.
• Managing your time by equally dividing it into tasks and breaks.
• Track how much time each task takes and eliminate unnecessary and repetitive tasks.
• Organize your digital workplace to get a sense of control over everything.
• Focus on improving your mental well-being.

These steps will help you increase your online productivity in your day.

The post Top 5 Best Productivity Apps For Working From Home appeared first on Tech Research Online.

• The Adoption of video conferencing platforms has surged due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• The Implementation of AI in video conferencing has already made video meetings better.
• AI has made huge advances in enhancing the convenience and quality of communications in the workplace.
• AI is helping in three major areas enormously by driving innovation: natural language processing, meeting room analytics, and computer vision.
• In the future, AI is expected to influence and dominate video communication for a range of sophisticated technology solutions and strategic partnerships that can benefit from smarter devices.

The adoption of video conferencing platforms has surged due to the coronavirus pandemic. Zoom, a video conferencing platform has reportedly seen an average of 200 million daily meeting participants at the beginning of 2020, compared to the 10 million participants in December 2019. As the fear of virus swept globally people started adopting technology to communicate, connect, and work.

Businesses are focusing on creating a flexible working environment such as multi-purpose breakout areas that are equipped with video devices. More and more companies and individuals started using video conferencing to connect to others, enhance productivity, allow room for remote working, and more. Video-enabled communication has become a critical component of productivity strategies.

However, video conferencing apps still have a long way to go as office spaces are evolving and demanding more from such platforms.

AI has Contributed to Video Conferencing

Today, the implementation of AI in video conferencing has already made video meetings better than ever before. Now, there is no need to spend time clicking buttons or entering codes to launch a meeting. Users can simply start, join, or end a meeting by speaking commands to voice-based AI. This in many ways is how people interact with Alexa (you can even use Alexa for this).

AI has also added the feature of Voice-to-text transcription. This feature enables the user to take meeting notes during video meetings. This is intended for individuals and their teams to concentrate on what’s being said, it focuses on boosting efficiency and collaboration. This feature is offered on several video conferencing apps including Otter Voice Meeting Notes, Zoom, and others. Voice-to-text transcription is a machine-learning-based technology that will get more accurate and smart as more people will use it.

AI has Made Video Conferencing More Efficient

Artificial Intelligence has come a long way when it comes to video conferencing it ranges from voice recognition to facial recognition machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have made huge advances in enhancing the convenience and quality of communications in the workplace, Even it might be hard to imagine more advancements in the field of video conferencing for people like you and me. The next frontier of video conferencing is quite simple.

AI is growing every day and there are several debates if it will, one day, replace the human race. Well, I don’t know! And most of the assumptions made by scientists are against it. So, while humans will be solely responsible for decision-making, AI will play a major role in supporting their decisions making by simplifying aggregated valuable information from calls. And in the future, video or VOIP will be one of the most common ways of communication. This will not only increase efficiency but also accelerate the discovery of solutions.

This simply means that the days of recording calls for quality assurance and training purposes are over and will instead now expose rich insights and data collection. Real-time data will allow call handlers to offer more relevant advice immediately. This type of AI technology will also be replicated in the workplace. As the AI devices will consume the entirety of raw content, they will not only learn to transcribe useful data but also learn who is speaking and when.

Participants in a meeting will then rely on a transcription to cut through the small talk and focus on recording pertinent points. AI will be able to harbor the power to automatically assign people tasks and send notifications to meeting members. In the future, meeting participants will now be the only ones benefitting from AI. According to Frost & Sullivan, AI can bring reliability to the meeting room by performing predictive analytics. IT departments will then be able to proactively monitor networks and endpoints. Then scan for performance anomalies and take necessary corrective actions.

So it is safe to say that AI-driven devices will have the potential to make conference rooms smarter and meetings better in unimaginable ways.

AI Technologies Transforming Video Conferencing

The unprecedented advancements in AI can dramatically improve the user experience. It can also drive efficiencies by helping automate time-consuming collaboration tasks. But, three major areas in AI can help enormously in driving innovation: natural language processing, meeting room analytics, and computer vision.

• Natural Language Processing

There are several ways Natural Language Processing (NLP) can help video conferencing to improve. Some of them include enabling automated transcription of the meeting, translating conversations into different languages, and sharing actions and notes. Combined with AI, video conferencing can also enable users to start, join, and leave meetings through voice-commanding virtual assistants and chatbots.

Moreover, the combination of AI with NLP can enable even better audio quality by minimizing background noise and suppressing echo automatically. Besides, coupled with evolving techniques such as automatic beam-forming and leveling, it will enable meeting participants to hear and understand others.

• Meeting Room Analytics

Similar to what we discussed earlier, future AI will be used to drive productivity by interacting with users both inside and outside of the meeting room. AI-driven devices will make conference rooms smarter and meetings better in unimaginable ways. For instance, video conferencing can drive significant improvements through AI by allowing them to automate simple tasks such as call rescheduling and sending important notifications to manage meetings more effectively and drive efficiency. This includes the ability to find and book available rooms, enable screen sharing, suggest relevant documents, notify participants of changes in pre-scheduled meetings, and others.

AI can generate valuable data insights tools for optimizing facilities management while simultaneously making the most of the existing office space. For example, AI can use predictive analytics not just to enable businesses but also to understand how meeting rooms are being used. It can then help the business to boost its room occupancy levels. Furthermore, analytics and AI can also be utilized by businesses to track engagement during video conferences by taking into account participants’ moods and the voice tone in the conversation, among participants.

• Computer Vision

Video conferencing technology is incomplete with computer vision. It is predictive to drive improvements in video meetings as it will empower them by allowing the camera to recognize the speaker and highlight them. It will also be able to track the number of people in the meeting and tag relevant participants. Other advances include the application of technology including gaze correction and background/environment control to improve user experience in the room.

Computing vision when combined with AI can help drive light correction and intelligent color. It will have the ability to automatically detect visual issues. Also, it will be able to optimize light balance for more emphasis on faces, especially during dim light or backlit conditions. Lastly, AI-enabled smart camera controls can track human figures in the room. They can then use allowing the camera to pan, tilt, and zoom to the center automatically for the comfortable frame as per the participants. This will be enormously useful for interactive meetings.

Augmented Reality to Redefine Video Conferencing

First of all, people need to clear out the confusion between augmented reality and virtual reality. While these two terms are mostly confused together or considered different sides of the same coin, there are not. In every possible aspect both the teams are entirely different. Virtual reality or VR is a computer-generated re-creation of a real-life situation or environment. While Augmented reality or AR projects information and images of the real world on actual view.

Many predict AR to be the next milestone when it comes to the development of video conferencing platforms through AI advancements. Despite having very limited usage in video meetings currently, AR promises to truly redefine and enhance communications. And it’s getting off to a great start. Companies like Meta are partnering with video conferencing platforms to deliver solutions. It is enabling the implementation of AR in video conferencing for the sharing and manipulation of 3D virtual holograms in real time. It also allows others to interact with it.

Once implemented, the technology will have the potential to create a whole new experience for its users by helping them interact with virtual service technicians and replicas of products. For example, it will be able to view systems and diagnose problems in real time. It will be able to create a limitless environment for collaborations and interactions.

The future of VR in video communications is weak. However, it is important to note that the point of video communication is to interact with other people face-to-face over long distances. Engaging with people’s virtual avatar rather than their faces can make you lose this important benefit. AR can share and help people with a real point of collaboration.

The Future

AI is expected to influence and dominate video communication for a range of sophisticated tasks such as meeting follow-up, language translation, scheduling subsequent meetings, creating to-do lists, and even leading meetings. The possibilities are endless, AI-based assistants might in the future, be able to guide and create top-line meetings through the summary of the notes it’s taken. It can then deliver those summaries to the participants in that meeting.

The assistant can then contribute to the meeting using natural language processing by creating charts to illustrate the data that is being discussed. It can also proactively access and share historical and relevant data during discussions. Facial recognition based on AI, if successfully implemented, can also be used for a variety of purposes in video conference rooms. It will be able to not just automatically recognize people in the room but also pair with technologies to provide others with information. This information includes a meeting participant’s title and company affiliation.

IT and facilities staff will also be able to better plan space allocation and usage with the help of useful available insights into who has used the conference room, when, and for what purpose. There is absolutely no doubt that AI applications don’t seem to have real-world benefits. However, the implementation of AI and AR in video conferencing is truly an accomplishment. And they are making video meetings better than face-to-face meetings.

Conclusion:

It is important to note that AI has the potential to transform video conferencing. It can also offer a much better user experience to enhance the productivity of video meetings. Nevertheless, the industry first needs to ensure the interoperability of video conferencing devices in a multi-vendor AI environment. Both large and small players in the marketplace will have to work together and ensure that new advancements in AI and computing vision are designed in a way to safeguard users’ privacy. The only way for the industry to improve the reliability of emerging video conferencing technologies is by building trust in the marketplace and ecosystem. It will be able to push the technology for more adoption of AI-based video collaboration.

It will also prove to be valuable to think from a consumer perspective. Systems should be able to add significant value to existing solutions without sacrificing performance. Also from the vendor perspective, such advanced capabilities should not impact the bottom line. This means that design engineers and architects will need to keep latency, heat, power consumption, and cost to a minimum. AI-optimized technology solutions and strategic partnerships can benefit from smarter devices.

The post Artificial Intelligence Is Promising Much Better Future For Video Conferencing appeared first on Tech Research Online.

COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has halted the economic activities of the world. While most of the countries are under lockdown, companies are encouraging their employees to work from home to keep businesses up. In the initial time companies with a weak infrastructure struggled to switch to remote work, however, as time passed companies adjusted and adopted.

According to a recent survey by Gartner on 800 global HR executives, 88% of organizations have encouraged or required employees to work from home. Also, nearly 97% of the organizations have canceled work-related travel. Besides, new applications and tools have made working from home convenient and simple.

However, it is undeniable that working in the office and working at home are two different ball games. In both scenarios, cybersecurity has become a major issue. Companies and offices usually have thoroughly protected devices and networks. During a time of crisis, cybercriminals are taking advantage. Microsoft detected a massive phishing campaign using 2,300 different web pages attached to messages and disguised as COVID-19 financial compensation information that led to a fake Office 365 sign-in page, in over 24 hours.

Here are 8 simple steps to securely work remotely:

1. Configure Wi-Fi encryption

The first and more crucial step to protect your computer is configuring Wi-Fi encryption. This is because if the computer is protected and Wi-Fi is not then the attacker can easily connect to the PC. This will enable them to not just intercept everything your PC sends or enter online including passwords for remote access to an office-based computer. Hence, it is vital to configure your network connection.

This can be done by making sure that the connection is encrypted. This will keep your information safe from prying eyes. However, there are several Wi-Fi encryption standards. So, you should handpick the best as some of them are outdated.

2. Change login and password of the router

For people who have never changed their login and password which is required to enter the router settings, it is high time to do so. The default password is set by many models that are both weak and known across the Internet making it easily searchable. More often than not, cyber-criminals simply write such passwords into the code of malicious programs. Then it can easily capture the router and turns it into a bot. The intruders can also spy on you through your computer as everything which is sent online passes through it.

3. Update Operating Systems and Programs

The development of technology has constant. Every day there is some innovation or invention. This also means that each day cybercriminals discover new vulnerabilities in applications and operating systems. These vulnerabilities can be easily exploitation and cybercriminals might able to infiltrate such devices.

However, once the vulnerability is found their program or system companies usually patched it in their next update. This makes it important to constantly stay in the loop to both get new features and stay safe from cyber-attacks on devices that you use for work.

4. Use a VPN 

In case, if you are using an internet connection that is not owned by you such as the Wi-Fi of your neighbors or a café network which might not be secure then you take extra care. Public Wi-Fi networks are not encrypted at all meaning that anyone acquires their password.

You can use a virtual private network that can help you prevent other people who are connected to the same public Wi-Fi network from spying. All of your data is encrypted regardless of the network settings when connected through a VPN.

5. Use Antivirus Solution

Cyberattacks have been rising; to protect themselves from such malware companies undertake several measures to protect their computers. Some of the measures include the installation of powerful security solutions, restrict online access from unauthorized devices, prohibit employees from installing applications, and others.

However, while working from home, taking such stringent measures to provide protection can be tricky. This leaves a computer vulnerable as it might lead to stolen some related work documents. This might lead to serious repercussions and other legal implications.

So, to prevent such issues it is vital for people working from home to install a reliable security solution. There is also plenty of free versions that can be installed on your PC to reduce the risk significantly.

6. Utilize Corporate Services for All Work

Companies usually have a set of IT services that are used by the employees use such as Microsoft Office 365 or a corporate messenger such as Slack. Such tools are configured and set- up by the company’s IT service. However, the department is not responsible for the access settings.

Hence, if you sending a link to the file to anyone then search engines will be able to index it. This means that if someone searches the topic of your document on Google then it might appear in the results. Hence, it is important to stick with corporate resources when exchanging crucial or confidential documents and other information.

The cloud drives are configured for business and are generally far more reliable than the free versions. Additionally, corporate mails usually have less spam adding up to less risk of missing an important mail or wrong address. This will also mean that the colleagues will know that it’s you and not someone pretending fake.

7. Be Aware of Tech Scams

There are times when malicious or highly convincing mail might infiltrate into corporate mail. Remote workers are highly likely to such attacks as the amount of digital communications increases. Hence, being aware of such malicious activity is crucial. Read messages carefully before responding to them. In case someone needs an immediate payment of an invoice or an important document, you should always double-check with the person they are claiming to be. Clarify with the other party or at least confirm the action one more time. You should be suspicious of e-mails that have links and especially when the link does not point to a corporate resource.

8. Use File-sharing Service 

Sometimes remote work can blur the lines between work and home. However, it is crucial to ensure that your personal and business data doesn’t get mixed up. In such a case, you can use business resources such as SharePoint or OneDrive to store and share work data. It is important to remember that you should not use consumer offerings for business data as they might not be as secure. It might lead to a possible reduction in the risk of unintentional and intentional enterprise data leakage.

Conclusion

Above are some security tips that can help remotely working employees take necessary action to work safely with corporate devices and corporate data from any location. For CISOs and IT managers, these security strategies for work from home can be easily incorporated into official cybersecurity and employee policies. The employees can also be trained on these policies while on-boarding new staff, when companies update their security policies, and finally in recurring security awareness training.

Good technologies and policies can help organization; however, the employees that are primary blocks of a business, they are at an increased risk. Generally, it is easy for organizations to implement work from home and remote work policies on internet use and different devices. They can be enforced with both technical and administrative controls.

The post 8 Security Tips For Protecting Your Data While Working Remotely appeared first on Tech Research Online.

• In 2011, Skype has 100 million active users and nearly 8 million paying customers.
• To capitalize on integration of Windows Phone and mobile apps the company transitioned the app from P2P networks to cloud-powered servers.
• The transition resulted in calls, messages, and notifications repeating on devices making Skype unreliable.
• In November 2016, Microsoft shifted its focus from Skype and launched Teams.
• Skype users were disappointed, so, Zoom focused on the struggles of its user base and offered high-quality audio and video calls.
• Pandemic amplified demand for the app boosting its sales and stock price to paving a path for its success.

Offices and other places of social interactions such as schools and universities have shifted at home. The only way for people to interact with friends, family, and colleagues is through the internet.

This has led to an increase in internet activity for several mobile and computer applications that provide productivity and easy communication. This drastic change in society has shifted focus from messaging app to teleconferencing software.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, Zoom has considerably dominated the global teleconferencing market. Teams and Google followed its lead closely behind. However, in between all the chaos Skype – a popular video calling app for nearly two decades failed miserably to make any headline. This posed the two most important questions for everyone – What happened to Skype? and How did Zoom surpass an app twice older?

What Happened to Skype?

Nevertheless, once Microsoft successfully acquired Skype technologies it faced some big challenges. This happened during the initial period of turning Skype into a profitable business while simultaneously keeping it relevant for consumers.

The acquisition took place around the time when chat apps like WhatsApp and WeChat were gaining momentum. This was also the same time when Zoom and Snapchat were founded. These apps were starting to challenge the dominance of Skype.

The first step Microsoft took for the Skype app was to ditch its own popular Windows Live Messenger service. However, the company still had a major problem – Skype’s service was based on P2P technology. This started a series of problems such as skype security issues. In 2013, to capitalize on integration of Windows Phone and mobile apps the company transitioned the app from P2P networks to cloud-powered servers.

The company also made Skype its default messaging app for Windows 8.1. and took the app on the web as part of Outlook. However messy it was, these steps made the transition from the app’s traditional P2P networks. The transition resulted in calls, messages, and notifications repeating on devices making Skype unreliable.

This transition took years and during this time several rivals started to rise. They were offering alternatives that not just incorporated messaging functionality but also synced across devices. Instead of fixing underlying issues, Microsoft was still spending heavily and putting in time trying to redesign Skype. This made the app both unreliable due Skype’s security issues and bad in terms of user experience.

So, in 2017, the company went off-road with the design. This new design turned the app into something similar to Snapchat. The design still failed to please people and attacked a lot of criticism. Eventually, they were forced to kill off Snapchat-like features. By this time Microsoft acknowledged that there are some serious problems Skype had.

During November 2016, the company shifted its focus from Skype and launched Teams. The company also integrated video calls into Teams. It was designed to take over Slack as a sophisticated tool for workplaces. In September 2017, Microsoft notified Skype’s business department that it will be replaced by Teams and its consumer version of Skype. Microsoft said that it will keep investing in Skype.

However, finally, in July 2021, Skype disappeared.

When Did Skype Become Popular?

To understand why Skype failed, we need to first understand – How Skype technologies dominated the market in the first place?

Back in 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype app for $8.5 billion. During this time the app not only had more than 100 million active users but also nearly 8 million paying customers.

The reason for the app’s success can be traced to the new and exciting communication tool it offered. It provides users the ability to talk via the internet. Additionally, Skype app provides quality audio and video service that was way ahead and better than its competitors. In the early stages, the founder of the app patented their technology which was another crucial reason for its success.

The app has become the main way for consumers to talk to each other with video calls over the internet. Voice and video calls made up 40% of all Skype usage back in 2011. The app had become a grand success, The Onion joked that the word “Skype” would be added to the dictionary. Nearly three years later, the verb was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. This highlighted the success and popularity of the service.

Skype Usage Statistics

In a press conference, Microsoft revealed that Skype has 200 million active users which rose to 40 million during the coronavirus pandemic, up 70% month-over-month.

Rise of Zoom

Skype users were disappointed after giving several chances. While Microsoft was focusing on adding and designing new features, the video and audio quality of Skype never improved. People started switching to similar alternative options (which were offering better quality for free).

During this time Zoom focused on the struggles of its user base. In contrast to Skype, their users were offered high-quality audio and video calls. It also offered good quality recording and sharing of conversations. This started to increase the users while simultaneously increasing its popularity.

Moreover, the video calling app offered a useful and unique beauty filter and virtual background instead of emoji and Snapchat like features. The built-in beautification filters smooth out skin tone and blemishes to give a polished appearance.

The virtual background features help user’s with custom backgrounds to cover the clutters, running pets and children, and others. Milky Way galaxy and Burj Khalifa top have become one of the most popularly used backgrounds. Users are also provided several options to add images and customize their videos.

Why Do People Start Using Zoom Instead of Skype?

One of the most important features that gave enormous Zoom over Skype and other video conferencing apps was its ability to allow the host to split participants into different rooms. Similar to how colleagues in different departments sit separately for work at workplaces. The hosts can split their employees into 50 breakout rooms (different sessions). This allows the employee’s room to discuss and collaborate with teammates. It also allows bosses and managers to pop-in and out of the breakout room to follow up and get updated. These features have only helped Zoom become one of the most popular apps and dominate the market.

Lastly, the selling point for an app to the broader consumer world was its free 40-minute conference calls for up to 100 attendees. The app has a simple and intuitive user interface, the app is extremely easy to use, and people wanting to join meetings don’t need to login for accessing meetings.

The post What Happened To Skype | How Did Zoom Surpassed Skype appeared first on Tech Research Online.