Google Meet updates with new features and extends the use of premium features to everyone until September 30
Spurred by the boom in smart working and e-learning imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, and taking advantage of Zoom Meetings' moment of difficulty, which has shown itself to be inadequate to the role in terms of security and privacy, Google Meet is now having the success that perhaps its ancestor, Google Hangouts (now available only to business users), deserved.
Google knows this and is also taking advantage of it, trying to stimulate the adoption of its platform for video calling and videoconferencing knowing that the right time is now: in a few weeks many people will be back to work and seeing each other physically. The same thing, it must be said, is being done by Microsoft with Teams, another platform that exploded due to the pandemic. Google has decided to pamper (and attract) users by offering free to all some premium features present in the paid version of Meet. It won't be forever, but not even for a short time: until September 30, 2020.
Google Meet: new features for free
The first premium feature offered for free by Google Meet is perhaps also the one most requested by users: the ability to view more people connected at the same time. There are now 16 video call participants that can be viewed on the same screen. This comes through a new graphical interface and, as usual, has only one real and great limitation: the Internet connection. If it is good, for all participants, then all video streams will be handled correctly and smoothly. Otherwise, some windows will crash. Among other premium features coming soon there are a better audio-video compression algorithm to remove background noise and lighten the data stream and integration with Gmail: now you can launch a video call to one of your contacts directly from your email client.
Google Meet: between Zoom and Hangouts
Many see the ability to view up to 16 people at once on Meet as an attempt by Google to attract former Zoom users. Perhaps it is, but in reality a little bit of all such platforms are adding similar functionality. Google Hangouts, which is now a paid professional platform, allows you to have meetings of up to 250 participants and record them on Google Drive. This is a purely business feature, for which many are willing to pay, but back in 2013 the first Hangouts (the free one linked to the defunct social Google+) allowed you to record live meetings on your YouTube channel. What Google offers today, then, is nothing more than what it experimented with (failing) many years ago.