Zoom You, Fella

[Methuselah]

.
“I do know about the free 40-minute service and have used it a couple times with friends.

ZOOM management decided to make free service available to individuals and nonprofits when the pandemic hit so people could stay in contact safely and nonprofits could carry on their services with the public. It turned out to be a brilliant marketing strategy because news about how well the program worked for meetings spread like wildfire, and a lot of people have signed up to use the free service also recommended it to their employers, churches, nonprofits, etc. as a free and useful service. I don't know how long it will remain free, but probably as long as it's not safe for people to get together. **** is paying for the service.”
So, there is a risk that you’ll have to pay after the Pandemic is under control. My prediction for that date is two Easters from now. It may be that there never will be a shutdown of the free service because it will cause bad will, which is a bad marketing strategy. It was a brilliant strategy to put in place now.

[Econoline]

Apparently Zoom had a 1-day-only (Thanksgiving Day) deal where anyone could sign up for an up-to-4-hour session. My little brother, the engineer, signed up for one (especially for the benefit of the 4 teenagers in the family) and kept it open for family and friends to check in and chat; and after it ended he went back to Zoom and signed up for an additional 2 hours. He's a right-wing Trump supporter but he made it clear that any political talk was strictly off limits. My computer is a a desktop with a separate monitor and NO camera (which is fine: in my family I'm the one who hates to be on-camera) and my wife just bought a new Dell "all-in-one" that has a camera but the computer can't find the camera, so we could see and hear everybody else but they could only hear (and not see) us. Meh. I personally was fine with that.

To answer your question, 'thuse: NO. I have absolutely NO interest in having any Plan B member meetings on Zoom or any other similar service. I like this place fine just the way it is. I know some members' real names (including yours) and can connect on Facebook if I want to, but to the extent that anyone here wants to preserve their privacy, I respect that and won't snoop around for any information they don't want to share.

[Methuselah]

Eco, I can’t give you a place to read Zoom’s official position on these matters. My sister has been keeping the family informed, and she’s been right in the past. As I quoted in the post about her above, the freebie is available now, and for the foreseeable future. We’re doing our family zooming successfully, as my granddaughter is an active user of the freebie. Could Zoom announce tomorrow that the freebie is over? Yes, but it doesn’t make marketing sense for them. I’ll expand on that later.
On finding the camera, that is a problem with Zoom and Newbies. Our family sessions on the paid version always start with some Newbie appearing in their window who can’t speak to us, or not hear, or both. Our best development method is for the site starter to wave her hands and indicate that she is calling the Newbie by phone, right now, and will talk her through by telling her how to find those sometimes hidden icons that turn things on. The beauty of the freebie version is that you can do a private one-on-one session with the Newbie where you can work out those problems from turning things on, without the rest of the family watching with a bored look on their faces, then signing off early. On the freebie you can be the temporary Site Sponsor and avoid setting up 3-person sessions with the Sponsor and two other people. That gets to be a burden for the family Site Sponsor. And Oh, you should address that camera issue regardless. Someday you’ll need it for another application, and its time-consuming to do that by trial and error. Tell the guy that sold it to you that he owes you some help on turning it on. The bad news here is that method may vary between applications.
For those who have no interest in a Zoom session that’s fine, they can change their minds later. If someone doesn’t know how to reach you then you won’t be subject to a lot of unwanted emails or other communications of the Zoom site. If it is successful here the worst that can happen is that you’ll see posts blabbing on about it, where they seem to be recruiting others to join. Be careful of guessing intent, but in any event you can skip over those posts or Foe block that sender.
Privacy is a big issue to some users here, but issues that don’t affect privacy are discarded for spurious privacy reasons. I’m a Facebook user group owner too, but it doesn’t let me see my great grandkids like Zoom does. Zoom does not require, nor foster sneaking around.
I am not a Zoom salesman, although I play one at Plan B. Zoom’s brilliant marketing strategy encourages their present customer base to recruit Newbies. I’m trying to figure out the marketing strategy here, but have only come up with conspiracy theories, so far. I try not to discuss those in public.

[Methuselah]

Duplicate post deleted.

[Methuselah]

Can one Zoom between people in the States and England, for example? It's free for usage in the States. I think. {I don't understand everything on the phone bill or other Internet transmission costs.] When you apply, are there more rules and conditions? Are you treated any differently because you are not in the states? I could ask about the same issues for Plan B aspirants, although that is none of my business.

[Guinevere]

Zoom uses the internets, so as long as you have a connection, it costs nothing, depending on how you make the connection. It would cost data if you’re using a device that charges for data, or it you have to access the zoom by dialing a phone number, not using the internet link, and you don’t have unlimited calls or have to make an international call (again, depending on your own plan).

I bought a pro-level Zoom acct in March for my personal use with friends and family and the various small boards on which I sit. I use it (or the other variations) daily, sometimes hours a day for work meetings and public meetings and my board work. My firm and my clients all have accounts. It’s very simple to use.

[Methuselah]

Thanks, Guin. That's what my granddaughter says about the freebie version. It does not have all the bells and whistles of the money version, but it is good enough to make the Pandemic bearable. Your input on charges for recruiting people to my family Zoom account. Do you have any info if it works in Hawaii or Europe? We have people there we'll never see until the Covid thing is over. My guess is we call the cousin in Hawaii, but England I'm not too sure about.

[MajGenl.Meade]

AFAIK one does not "call" anybody, not if one is relatively normal and equipped (as you are) with the ability to send emails etc. The Alexander Graham Bell Speaking Device and Stormdoor Company is not required. (Is anyone on dial-up these decades?)

It's the interwebs. It works on interwebby principles. That's why it needs data. You know your data plan - either unlimited or so many Gigglebites an hour/week/month/whatever. What does it cost? Contact your provider.

Someone sends a giant email inviting all to join a meeting and provides the Supersecret Access Decoder Ring Number. It doesn't matter if they are in the hub of the universe or the USA. The recipient(s) go to the Zoom site and "join" the virtual meeting. Isn't that so?

Lawd, this is like answering a question such as "Who was Benjamin Franklin?" for someone who can't be arsed to ask Dr Google. Innit?

[Methuselah]

This will be my home thread here for a while. My large extended family now has much experience on the money version of Zoom. We find its capability limit of 50 persons on a screen is appropriate for big events using mostly the picture part for communication, like weddings or birth announcements. The sound portion gets garbled with background noise and people bulling their way into the speaker’s role. When the purpose is verbal communication with pictures it works very well with 10 or less people even with rude people who break into the conversation. You first send out an instruction on how to get in next, “wave both hands on screen”. The Sponsor, who plays the Admin role there, can mute any speaker who is going on too long using the space bar. The size limit for speaking sessions requires us to use two groups to cover one side of the family only. No one ever comes to all sessions, and if you come in and find it over-crowded already you can just leave. Other more complicated permanent and/or temporary groups are now under investigation. There are some knobs to turn in the user interface to ease meeting that goal. Our sales pitch to the older crowd is “You may never see anyone else, or have them see you, if you don’t survive until after the Pandemic.” Telling us we can see our grandkids who may live on the other side of the continent is a big seller too, in the Age of Pandemic.
General, you are a fountain of misinformation. Do you know of any Zoom Users in Old Blighty who can Zoom across the ocean to friends in America? A Google search would be a good way to answer this question. Or is English Google really an integrated part of International Google? I know it has a local bias on searches.

[MajGenl.Meade]

General, you are a fountain of misinformation.

When a person begins a post with "AFAIK" and ends with "Isn't that so?" the indication is that what is between those two bits is not data but a possibly errant understanding.

So in the words of the chap in the joke known as "repartee", FYYRNC

[Guinevere]

I give up. I explained it above. Zoom works internationally, via a web link. It can also be used via non-toll phone call. I don’t know how to say it in any plainer language.