Google is opening up its Google Meet videoconferencing service to anybody who wants to use it, instead of just offering it to enterprise and education customers via G Suite. The company says anybody with a Google account will now be able to create free meetings of up to 100 people that can last any amount of time — though after September 30th it may restrict meeting length to 60 minutes.
That Google account requirement is a hard one, however. People won’t be able to just click a link and join a meeting — they’ll need to be logged in. That is so meetings can be better controlled by their hosts, hopefully eliminating the possibility of Zoombombing. Google will also introduce other safety measures: people not explicitly added to a meeting via a calendar invite will be automatically entered into a green room when they try to join a meeting, and only be let in when approved by the host. The free version will also not offer landline dial-in numbers for meetings.
Those safety-focused caveats are Google’s way of differentiating its Meet product from Zoom, which has had a meteoric rise that over the past few months and caught both Google and Microsoft flat-footed. The increased attention on Zoom revealed a litany of security problems, which the fast-growing company has scrambled to address. But Google is seemingly hoping there’s still an opening for people who distrust Zoom.
Google「Meet」無料提供 最大100人参加のビデオ会議https://t.co/9F2fEZWF2C
— 日本経済新聞 電子版（日経電子版） (@nikkei) April 29, 2020
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/1255162278615363584
