Most, if not all of us are confined to our homes due to coronavirus lockdown and likely will be for the next few weeks. Therefore, it’s no surprise that we’re noticing an unprecedented rise in the use of video conferencing apps including Zoom, Google Meet, and Facebook’s Messenger Room among others.
With “Work From Home” becoming a new normal, numerous video conferencing app are being used for business meetings, school teaching, and much more. As we all know by now, the Zoom Video Conferencing app became wildly popular initially before facing flak over its flawed security policies.
This made users look out for other alternatives, then came to Google Meet. In an attempt to take down its rivals, Google made ‘Meet’ free to everyone with a Gmail account. It’s worth mentioning here that, Google Meet was a paid service only available to G-Suite users.
Recently, the Google Meet downloads have passed 50 million installations on the Play Store. Back in March, it has touched 5 million installs, and soon after, it passed 10 million in 20 days.
Instead of booking meeting rooms, people are now sending invites for Google Meet and hold meetings and conferences virtually via digital means. As a result, more and more people have been downloading group video calling applications to meet their work requirements.
Another report by Android Police recently revealed that Google Meet had 10 million downloads towards the end of March. As of May 17, the number of downloads increased significantly. This is contrary to the early attention which was received by Microsoft Teams and Zoom in the very beginning. Since Google made the application easily accessible for people, a spike has been witnessed.
The company has also made the service free of cost for everyone which was earlier meant only for enterprises and students who are usually the group video calling application for educational purposes which eventually propelled people to download this app when compared to its competitors. Moreover, it has also been integrated with Gmail and can be seen on the left sidebar panel of Gmail.
This article was originally published by Mashable. Algoworks does not take any credit and is not responsible for the information shared in the article.
