Facebook's latest weapon to destroy Zoom, Rooms. (Image via Messenger News)

Challenging Zoom, Facebook makes Rooms

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Internet & IT
Apr 25, 2020
3246
The largest social media company in the world based in the United States (U.S), Facebook, added a video conference feature to its subsidiary messaging service, Messenger. It is called Rooms. The step was seen as an effort by the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg to tackle other video conference companies.

Recently, this kind of service is being in the limelight due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) global pandemic outbreak. The outbreak caused countries to announce lockdowns; therefore, some companies are requiring their employees to install video conference apps, such as Zoom, to work from home.

However, recently, Zoom faced backlashes due to the privacy issue because it secretly distributes users’ information to Facebook. In its “Term and Conditions”, Zoom did not mention any data-sharing activity with Facebook. Instead, it is automatically connected with Facebook’s Graph API.

Messenger Rooms can host up to 50 participants for a virtual meeting, a study session, or a casual conversation with your friends or family members. While Zoom limits the duration to only 40 minutes, the Rooms' time period is unlimited.

On its official blog, Facebook asked its users to invite everyone to use Rooms, even those who do not have Facebook accounts. Same as Zoom, Rooms does not require its users to possess a Facebook account to use. When someone becomes a host and intends to hold a meeting, the invitation can be sent through “News Feed” and “Group & Events” options on the Facebook application.

According to the Venture Beat, Facebook will integrate Rooms with its subsidiary companies such as Instagram through Instagram’s Direct Message, WhatsApp, and Portal.

Facebook’s Vice President for Messenger, Stan Chudnovsky, claimed that the Rooms was actually an old project done even before the COVID-19 hit the world. Chudnovsky said that Rooms was actually launched 4 years ago in Canada and Australia.

Source: https://bit.ly/3bDpWv4

Business , Company , Telecommunication , Technology , Video-Conference , Gadget , U.S , Zoom , Facebook , Messenger , Rooms , COVID-19 , WFH