In a bid to stay up to speed with Google and Microsoft, Zoom is launching a new collaborative notes feature. The feature is part of Zoom’s plans to expand into a full-service office suite.
The collaborative notes feature will allow users to share documents on the platform. With Notes, users can create, share, and simultaneously edit a text document while using the feature.
According to Zoo, Notes will appear alongside a video call, where Zoom’s chat box usually is. Everyone on the call can join in to edit as the meeting is happening. This makes it easier for participants to focus on the conversation than if they had to switch over to another screen.
“We wanted to offer a clean user experience that allows users to create agendas and notes while staying within the Zoom platform instead of jumping to other content management tools,” said Darin Brown, head of productivity applications at Zoom. “With Notes, it’s seamless to create and share personal and collaborative notes in and out of meetings.”
Notes is rolling out to all users at no cost in the next couple of weeks.
In related news, Zoom got a new update that may not sit well with a lot of people. Now, if you are one of those who like being anonymous in meetings on Zoom, then this piece of news will probably give you something to worry about.
Zoom’s Intelligent Director beta is designed with a machine learning algorithm to track participants’ heads through multiple cameras that have been strategically positioned in a meeting room.
For Zoom, things have not really been as they used to, especially with the pandemic way behind us now. In those days [the pandemic era], Zoom was the main remote app for everyone. That has, however, changed with the coming of Google Meet and Microsoft, among others.
That said, the company did not really stop at adding new features and updating its services. Of course, it lost some of its users and growth stalled, Zoom remains the main app for thousands of other businesses out there.
Back to Zoom Intelligent Director: the tool will allow more people in mid-to-large board rooms to appear present in a meeting, even if they are trying to stay far away from the eyes of the camera within the big screen.
