While Zoom became a necessary tool during the pandemic, it’s now trying to keep the momentum going by making improvements to its services. Among a slew of improvements announced this week, Zoom said it would include integration with Twitch to allow meetings to be more easily live-streamed.
Also read:Zoom Finally Fixes Mac Bug that Kept the Mic on After Calls
Twitch Integration to Improve Zoom Meetings
When most of us think about Twitch, we envision live-streaming games – but that’s not what Zoom has in mind. Twitch can be used to live-stream other things, even meetings, and Zoom is seeing possibilities in that.
This type of integration was possible before between Zoom and Twitch but required the help of third-party software. Now it will be much more direct from Zoom to Twitch.
The interest in skipping the third-party option most likely is financial. Zoom is not opening this option to everyone in a Zoom meeting. You won’t be live-streaming your buddy chat to all your former high school buddies.
This option is aimed at business and education meetings and will cost you. Just like other Zoom live-streaming sessions, this will be a paid privilege. The integration with Twitch will only be available to Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education Zoom accounts. The cheapest plan in those options is nearly $150.
It will also only work on Zoom’s desktop client, which, again, limits its use to the same subset.
“To help our customers streamline the process of sharing content within their communities and extend their reach, account owners and admins can now allow hosts to live stream their meeting or webinar to Twitch directly rather than manually configuring the stream as a custom live-streaming service,” Zoom explained in a blog post.
Other Zoom Improvements
The Twitch integration is far from the only Zoom improvement. The blog post listed many changes, noting, “At Zoom, our teams are always thinking of new ways for your to enhance your communication and engage with others, whether you are in the office, at home, or somewhere in between.”
The post added that the goal is for these new “features to help you connect, collaborate, and share with others to create memorable experiences.”
Along with Twitch integration, Zoom added a few other features to Meetings. It added avatars for use in representing yourself in meetings and webinars and audio sharing to all Breakout Rooms. The Share Video option is supported here as well.
In addition, Events, Contact Center, Room, and Phone are getting improvements, and Chat picked up some worthwhile changes as well. Chats and Channels can now be grouped into folders with sidebar customization. Additionally, you can record and send video messages within Chat.
All of this shows how Zoom is working to move past being just a pandemic tool to help people get together safely. It’s working toward being a necessary tool for all business, in direct competition with Google Meet, Skype, Microsoft Teams, etc. Zoom is no longer the new guy on the block and appears to be setting a permanent place at the table.
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