Microsoft Teams is now free to use for 24-hour video calls all in a browser

[Leslie.m]

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/20/21579076/microsoft-teams-free-video-calling-web-zoom-competition

 

Microsoft Teams is now free to use for 24-hour video calls all in a browser

Edited November 20, 2020 by Tortuga

[Tortuga]

LDC uses Microsoft Teams for their live monthly update meetings, the last meeting had 2000 viewers. That's the only time I have used Microsoft Teams.

[carlos]

This is the software we use at work. We are mostly working from home, and keep in touch with workmates and the boss by Teams. It works fine.

[Tbs77]

My job uses Google Meets.

[rocket]

My job uses the recliner. OH, that's right, I'm retired. 😂

[Leslie.m]

Quick easy and free way to have a night of association...

[Tbs77]

My job uses the recliner. OH, that's right, I'm retired. 

I'm sinning because I'm covetous you're retired! I want to be retired!

[Sheep]

7 minutes ago, Tbs77 said:

I'm sinning because I'm covetous you're retired! I want to be retired!

Funny. I am retired, but I don't want to be. I wish there was a way you and I could trade places.

[Friends just call me Ross]

Well, that was a complete waste of a half an hour, and an unwilling disclosure of

my cell number, just to be told that the browser on my cell phone is not compatible

with Microsoft Teams, and to go install the mobile version.

 

I went to Google Play and read the feedback from the mobile version users

and would NEVER install that app on any of my devices.

 

I hope to have better success on my laptop.  

[jwhess]

9 hours ago, Tortuga said:

LDC uses Microsoft Teams for their live monthly update meetings, the last meeting had 2000 viewers. That's the only time I have used Microsoft Teams.

My LDC interaction ended last spring.  But before that (in zone 2) we used Skype.  My Bethel CAD people used Skype as well.

[Brandon]

10 minutes ago, jwhess said:

we used Skype

Skype, Teams, and GroupMe are all actually the same company (Microsoft)

[M.J.]

Skype seems to be going the way of the dodo bird.

[Brandon]

11 hours ago, M.J. said:

Skype seems to be going the way of the dodo bird.

closed systems tend to have a short half life. that’s the problem with all these modern communication systems; lack of federation. 

[Qapla]

Zoom has been working for me .... 

 

... That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Edited November 21, 2020 by Qapla

[M.J.]

12 hours ago, Brandon said:

closed systems tend to have a short half life. that’s the problem with all these modern communication systems; lack of federation. 

I thought Microsoft (Skype) was federated through Azure...?

[Sheep]

21 hours ago, Qapla said:

Zoom has been working for me .... 

 

... That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Um... not for me. As you know, John, from our once-in-a-while Zoom chats together, I have been getting these "Your Internet connection is unstable" messages very frequently. Yesterday I got kicked out of my meeting, even with a brand new modem my ISP sent me! I was forced to use the phone to listen to the rest of the meeting.

 

Apparently it's not just me. Someone in my previous congregation told me last night that she and a few others are having similar problems. She says that one of their elders got kicked out of Zoom while he was conducting a part! I'm wondering if this has something to do with one (or more) of the recent Zoom updates.

 

Come to think of it, maybe this belongs in the Computer forum...

[Brandon]

On 11/21/2020 at 11:55 PM, M.J. said:

I thought Microsoft (Skype) was federated through Azure...?

No, federation means that two services are fully interoperable. Some services used to be, like AIM and iChat were (one account would work across both, you didn’t need to make a second account). And google Jabber/XMPP was also a federated standard but I think google abandoned XMPP. 

Email is actually the most successful federated standard: you can have a Google address (gmail) and I can have a Microsoft (outlook) or Apple address (iCloud) and yet we can message back and forth! Amazing right? Not really... it’s just basic information technology. Can you imagine if you couldn’t receive my emails unless I created a gmail account, and then that account could only send to other gmail accounts? 😱 

 

SMS (‘texting’) is another example: a while back, it wasn’t always federated. If your number was with a certain carrier and my number was on a different carrier, sometimes it wasn’t possible to text each other. I think this was more common in some parts in Europe, I can’t remember now for certain.

 

But all these closed standards now (Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord, Telegram, Snapchat, LINE, Kakao, Kik, Viber, etc) are just getting ridiculous. The term “fediverse” describes a relatively new initiative to create a common standard that different services can build with, but will always remain interoperable. Two of the most successful ones have been Matrix and Mastodon. On top of being open and federated, they’ve also gone out of their way to build “bridges” to some of the other protocols that allow it. For example, it’s now possible to have a Discord group and Telegram group that can communicate to each other by set up a Matrix bridge as the middleman. 

[Hinata]

On 11/23/2020 at 3:13 AM, Sheep said:

Come to think of it, maybe this belongs in the Computer forum...

 

Zoom can get unstable for me also. Have other videoconferencing apps worked better for you?

 

Are there any congregations that use other videoconferencing apps other than Zoom?

 

[Sequoia]

I can see where it says to schedule a meeting and it says my meeting is scheduled.  But I can't see the meeting to start it.