It’s taken almost a year since Google promised to bring emoji reactions to their video conferencing Meet platform, and they have finally made good on their word.
Making online meetings more interesting – and fun – you can send out reactions to colleagues, and the emojis don’t stay static as they do on Zoom. Instead, they float up the left side of the screen and will burst if the same one is used by multiple participants.
Plus, small emoji badges will appear in the upper-left of your video tile so you can see who reacted to what.
At first, the full gamut of emojis that Zoom offer won’t be available, but the initial run will include favourites such as the heart, thumbs-up, party pooper, joy, wave, thinking, astonished, cry, thinking and thumbs down.
The feature is now available on Google Meet for iOS devices and the web, and will hit Android in coming weeks.
Google are also launching 360-degree backgrounds on the Meet mobile app that move as you rotate your camera. The feature – on the way to both Android and iOS in the next few weeks – will start with a beach-themed background, followed by others called sky city, oasis and mountain temple.
