I’ll try making this as unbiased as possible.
Because the COVID pandemic, tutors in Thailand have profited massively from it. Meanwhile, language centers have completely dithered and fallen apart because they were romantically in love with the past. In saying that, zoom’s profit, around the world, has skyrocketed 1,300 percent because from the schools in America, to every other country in the world….zoom is a MASSIVE HIT.
It took a pandemic to boost the stock to unforeseen heights…and that wasn’t overnight. This was a 9-year making.
Then Mark, the man we are still unsure about the entire Cambridge Analytica and how he helped Trump win the election, has launched his own platform. He’s trying to sway people from zoom and for them to come on Facebook messengers live video with over 50 participants, but we all know how bad Facebook calls and videos are.
When it comes to chat applications in general, they honestly don’t do well. Viber is probably the best when it comes to making phone calls, but anytime I’m on Facebook or Line, the voice fades and video continuously freezes.
Brandy Loyalty?
Like Apple, Facebook has their fans. Although they’ve misconstrued algorithms and they’re forcing you to buy ads to have a more significant reach, the tides have completely changed on both Facebook and Instagram. Before, Instagram hashtags were fantastic at bringing newcomers onboard. I’m talking circa 2018. Now, it’s impossible to get anyone from hashtags because now that Facebook owns Instagram, that mentality has spilled over to IG, too. My highest video reach always involves younger women being interviewed with me. In videos that I have a strong message — forget about it.
So will Facebook enthusiasts make a drastic change from the zoom platform to stick with their guns at Facebook? Or will someone like myself, who’s been using zoom for over a year, make a change because it’s free?
Google Hangouts = Bottom of the barrell
As I was sitting at my desk listening to a group of 5 students give their presentation with the program director of Waterloo University, the audio was in and out. I can count a handful of times where it just didn’t work, and that was a frustrating experience. However, google is FREE. So anytime you use something for FREE, don’t expect it to be its full 100%. Zoom, which has an astronomically better platform than any other videos service, especially social media, is a paid one — 40 minutes of group chat is all you get. When it comes to schools, however, they are upgraded for free — which is a cool perk.
But going back to google, the features just aren’t there. You can’t use audio from your computer, whiteboard material, file sharing, etc. Some people would say “you can,” but it’s not like zoom.
The last time I used google was when I had to give a 20-minute presentation to a group of employees from a company here in BKK. When I first joined the room, the audio was gone. I couldn’t hear a damn thing…so I had to restart my Mac and sure enough — it began working. Just imagine if it was a live interview and google did that to me? So much for getting a job! That’s unreliability at its finest, and because Google likes to depict places in the world as being bad (Africa — off topic, but true)….I would NEVER use their platform as a reliable service.
Conclusion
Mark loves competition, but his product is faulty. Facebook pages and algorithms have taken a significant hit, and because of it, someone who has a group of 800,000 people would only get 1000 video likes because notifications don’t pop up for the other 99%. Facebook has intentionally orchestrated this, and if they’re not in it for the best interest of the end user, I would NEVER support a new service…especially someone that they rollout just to make a quick buck.
Google almost lost me a potential job because their platform is shambolic…and I think that’s all that needs to be said.
