Zoomtopia 2020: Zoom Video Unveils Zapps, New Features To Take On Microsoft, Google

Zoom Video kicked off its Zoomtopia two-day event Wednesday with the announcement of several new features for its massively growing platform.

Zoom Announces Zapps: One of the biggest announcements from Zoom Video Communications ZM: the ability to have apps directly in video meetings.
Zapps will allow users to be more efficient and effective without having to switch apps on desktop, the company said.

Zapps is launching with over 25 app partners, including Asana, Box, Coursera, Dropbox, Trello, Sales Force, Slack, Survey Monkey and Zendesk.

Zapps will be available to free and paid users later this year, Zoom said. 

Other New Zoom Features: Zoom also announced OnZoom, an online event platform. OnZoom allows users to create and host events that can be free, paid or fundraising efforts.

Zoom launched end-to-end encryption for users, where even Zoom does not have the key to the meeting. This is a feature that rivals do not offer.

Zoom announced new communications platform enhancements that will help devices like the Portal from Facebook and the Amazon Echo allow Zoom meetings.

Related Link: Why Kevin O’Leary Is Bullish On Zoom Video

Zoom's Weight Watchers Partnership: WW International WW announced it was strengthening the relationship between its Weight Watchers brand and Zoom.

Weight Watchers will be part of Zoom’s Zapps and On-Zoom platforms.

With the growing number of hours spent in front of screens, Weight Watchers will help Zoom users by providing push notification reminders to stand and stretch during or after meetings.

Weight Watchers will also give Zoom users custom wellness content and snack ideas.

WW International will also use the OnZoom feature to offer paid virtual classes on wellness and weight loss.

Given Zoom’s massive audience, this could be a great partnership for WW International if it can convert some Zoom users into paying subscribers. 

Why It’s Important: Zoom said they have seen extremely high usage of their platform this year. The company has powered over 3 trillion minutes of meetings and regularly sees 300 million daily participants on its platform.

The features announced today continue Zoom’s trend of allowing more collaboration for its users.

Zoom sees increasing competition from Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT Teams platform and Google Meet from Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL.

The market for virtual meetings has seen massive growth due to the increase of remote workers during the coronavirus pandemic. The features unveiled by Zoom could help the company continue to hold a leadership position in the market.

ZM Price Action: Shares of Zoom lost 1.84% Wednesday, closing at $509.25. The stock is up over 660% in 2020.

Photo courtesy of Zoom.