Yesterday, Microsoft revealed a raft of new Teams features, as it aims to move the tool out of the realm of businesses and appeal to a wider user base.
Zoom is following suit, launching a new app store that will integrate third-party apps into video conferences, hoping to “make meetings more engaging, more productive and actually even more fun”.
Zoom has previously flirted with this idea, launching a marketplace that currently has 1,500 apps. But these need to be downloaded and added to meetings separately — an option that very few users knew about or bothered with.
At launch, 50 apps will be available, including Asana and polling app Dot Collector.
Zoom’s product lead for apps, Ross Mayfield, told the BBC he sees people “using apps for things like taking notes, whiteboarding, logging action items and managing your tasks to make you more productive.”
Zoom are also hoping to appeal to those who don’t use the product just for work with “video games, casual games, charades, board games, card games, things like that, as a way of playing with friends and family.
“Game developers are actually building games specifically for team-building exercises, icebreakers and kind of keeping that social connectivity in the changing world,” he explained.
