With the significant shift towards remote and hybrid work, there has been explosive growth in the video conferencing market over recent years. At Zoho Meeting, we have been actively working to improve the online meeting experience for remote business teams ever since—and this year has been no different!
In this blog post, we'll look at the major updates and features we've released in Zoho Meeting over the past 12 months. Join us as we reflect on the past year and look forward to 2023.
Embracing change: Major updates and enhancements
Exciting changes to the Free edition
Our forever free edition now empowers freelancers and solopreneurs to conduct unlimited meetings and webinars for up to 60 minutes. With a maximum of 100 participants, you can add co-hosts to your free online meetings and access important features, such as whiteboard and virtual backgrounds.
Standard edition for startups and small businesses
This year we launched the all-new Standard editions for Meeting and Webinar, with prices starting as low as $1. Ideal for startups, the Standard edition helps hosts record sessions with ease, lock meetings for confidentiality, customize meetings with co-branding, and much more!
Improved Analytics tab
We created an exclusive Analytics tab with important metrics, such as Session Count, Session Duration, and Session History, to monitor participant engagement in past meetings. Now, use our consolidated dashboard to determine the effectiveness of your online sessions during a specific time period.
Automated meeting workflows
Adding to our ever-growing list of integrations, we integrated Zoho Meeting with Zoho Flow, helping businesses automate manual meeting workflows. With more integrations in the pipeline, we're moving towards making Zoho Meeting a one-stop solution for all your business communication and collaboration needs.
Innovative features for improved productivity
Custom virtual backgrounds
This year, we introduced virtual backgrounds to our online meetings and webinars. You can use our built-in backgrounds, which include static images and GIFs, or upload your own custom virtual background.
Collaborative Whiteboards
We leveled up our collaborative features with the introduction of Whiteboards. Easily brainstorm with your team, record key points, and create flowcharts using Whiteboards in Meeting.
Non-verbal feedback
Participants and attendees can use the Raise Hand feature to catch the attention of hosts and organizers during an ongoing session. They can also use emojis to react to the presenter in real time.
Multi-department management
With enterprises in mind, we launched the Departments feature. The Super Admin of an organization can manage multiple departments, while Admins can manage different sets of users and host separate sessions within a department.
Session Materials
Using Session Materials, organizers can attach and share PPTs, PDFs, and videos while scheduling a webinar, or they can share them virtually during an ongoing session.
Live polls
Improve audience engagement with live polls during meetings. Launch quick polls and get real-time opinions from your meeting participants.
Picture-in-Picture
We launched Picture-in-Picture to help you stay connected with meeting participants while you browse different applications on your system. You can now maintain a seamless meeting experience with the help of a floating window.
Request to Unmute
Owing to privacy practices, a meeting host cannot unmute a participant. But with the new Request to Unmute feature, a host can request that participants unmute themselves and share opinions.
Besides these major feature releases, we've also made several enhancements to improve the overall meeting experience.
Awards and recognitions
- March 2022 Customers' Choice for Gartner Peer Insights Voice of the Customer: Meeting Solutions
- Constellation Shortlist for Virtual Events: Webcasts and Meetings
- Strong Innovator by Frost & Sullivan for Cloud Meetings and Team Collaboration Services
Let's look at what's in the pipeline
We're actively working on a list of advanced features, such as breakout rooms, recorded webinars, custom registration pages, and virtual conference rooms. Visit our product roadmap page to get a clear picture of what's next for Zoho Meeting.
If you can't find the feature you're looking for, don't worry! Request a feature, and based on demand, you may see it added to Meeting in the future!
As we step into the new year, we can't thank you enough for your trust and for being a part of the Zoho Meeting community. We promise to bring you more exciting features in the year ahead, empowering your business to reach new heights.
Happy holidays! Have a safe and happy 2023!
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