Google Meet becomes free for everyone as Zoom and Microsoft Teams continue to grow

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Published onApril 29, 2020

published onApril 29, 2020

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Zoom’s popularity pretty much exploded since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, with thevideo conferencing app reaching 300 million daily usersthis month. Microsoft Teams is also seeing increased usage since March, with Microsoft recently announcing44 million daily active users.

Google, which is also competing with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and others in the video conferencing space must certainly be feeling the heat. Indeed, the companyannouncedthis morning that Meet, its premium video conferencing app, would become free to use for everyone with a Google account.

“Since January, we’ve seen Meet’s peak daily usage grow by 30x. As of this month, Meet is hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings and adding roughly 3 million new users every day. And as of last week, Meet’s daily meeting participants surpassed 100 million,“ said Javier Soltero, the former Outlook and Cortana boss who isnow the head of Google’s G Suite.

Google Meet is currently available on the web, iOS and Android, and Soltero emphasized that the app respects your privacy. “Your Meet data is not used for advertising, and we don’t sell your data to third parties,” the exec said.

This free version of Google Meet will support up to 100 participants, matching what Zoom currently offers with its free tier. However, Google will beat Zoom’s 40 mins limit on group meetings by imposing no duration limit until September 30th, when meetings will be limited to 60 minutes.

Google will start opening up Meet to all users starting next week, and you can alreadysign up with your Google accountto be notified when the app is available for you. In case you missed it, Facebook also announced itsnew Messenger Roomslast week which will support real-time video chat with up to 50 people, so it’s clear that the biggest tech companies won’t allow Zoom to keep dominating the videoconferencing space.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time).

For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web.

Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they’re looking for.

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