[leonardteo]

It's funny that the original title for this article on CBC was actually "Zoom chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust: Don Pittis | CBC News" and the article only mentioned Zoom. :) They changed the title and edited I guess after people pointed out that the research itself was not Zoom specific. I'm amazed how Zoom has become synonomous with "video conferencing" when there are so many other viable solutions available.

[enobrev]

It's hard to say whether zoom would have seen this sort of traction without this pandemic.

With my own team, it won with one very important feature: the audio processing was better, which meant we didn't have to worry as much about muting or wearing headphones.

We wanted to use slack, but on linux you can't share a single window, and with three screens, that's out. Up until recently we couldn't use them for more than one person, anyway. Google meet was OK, but _required_ headphones. I ended up buying a nice expensive pair of headphones specifically because we were using google meet / hangouts / whatever. Otherwise, it was echoes all around.

With zoom, these things went away. It wasn't 100%, but it was damn near close for us. And this was with a technically savvy team in a software company. When it came to chatting with less savvy friends and family, it was an obvious choice for the same reasons.

[leephillips]

This is a bit off-topic, but I can’t seem to use Zoom on my Ubuntu laptop with either Chrome or Firefox. As soon as I enter a call, it sucks up all the available memory until the tab, browser, or whole UI crashes. I can use jit.si or Google meetings with no problem. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[enobrev]

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 on my laptop and desktop. I haven't tried in the browser, but the installed app seems to work well for me on both.

[leephillips]

I used that once, successfully. Then I reconfigured my system and uninstalled a particular input method, and the app refuses to run without it. So my comment was about the in-browser version. I know they all use the same browser APIs, so it's interesting that some work well but Zoom won’t work at all.

[sosuke]

I completely agree. I had never heard of Zoom before this outbreak. It was always some other small video conferencing solution or GotoMeeting if it was official business.

[stephenhuey]

I’ve heard their name on NPR ads in Houston for years and even tried them once years ago but never knew of anyone else using them. I just assumed they were about the same as other solutions but were trying to ramp up with VC money.

[NikolaNovak]

What's hilarious is that in Corporate/"Enterprise" world, "Webex" has been the verb for many years instead.

No matter the tool, we need to "Setup the webex"... :O

[dawg-]

I could see Zoom ending up like Kleenex or Jet Ski or Crock-Pot or Chapstick, where the brand name becomes the word for the thing itself.

Edit because I googled it for more examples and couldn't help myself: Tupperware, Band-Aids, Post-It, Slip n Slide, Xerox, Velcro, Weed Eater, Scotch Tape, Q-Tips, Rollerblades, Jacuzzi, Bubble Wrap.....

[dmd]

A few days ago this gem appeared in my inbox: "Hey folks, we had trouble setting up the Cisco zoom this meeting so we're switching to a Google zoom, here's the link"

[Cthulhu_]

Have they tried googling the issue via Bing?

[dafoex]

As a slight tangent, generic trademark names aren't always as generic the world over. I've never heard anyone ask for a Kleenex when the want a tissue, and from your further examples I assume a xerox is something to do with stationary or printing, and I couldn't tell you what a q-tip is without googling it.

A reverse example of something I use generically but has confused a number of people I talk to in the states is using "Hoover" to mean "vacuum cleaner". They're just called hoovers because the Hoover company made them at one point.

[tantalor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

[LyndsySimon]

When the "Zoom bombing" trend hit the news, I expected that would be the beginning of the end for the company. They were having security issues due to an integral part of their platform's implementation at the same time that they were seeing an unprecedented increase in usage. Scaling and essentially rearchitecting at the same time, under load, is a huge challenge.

I'm very impressed that they've pulled through. If anything, Zoom has improved during the transition. That's not to say that I find it to be the best solution - I've had several videoconferencing/telepresence solutions work well for me in the past - but it's certainly "good enough" and they're in an enviable market position at this point.

In a few months, I'd love to see some retrospectives come out about how they did it from both the engineering and management perspectives.