Facebook’s Portal Adds Support for Zoom Calls

Facebook’s Portal video connection device has seen a high increase as the COVID19 pandemic was going on and millions of people were already operating from home, despite initial reservations regarding adding Facebook-connected cameras to their homes.

Facebook now aims to make Portal even more operational,  by adding support for a range of video meetings tools that allow portal users to connect to work colleagues through the device easier. The company provides funding to more existing corporate-level videoconferencing facilities. Zoom is the bigger one, but Webex, BlueJeans, and GoToMeeting do come to the Portal to provide other solutions for the needs of today’s work from home environment.

One thing to note, however, is that Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are still not supported in this portal. But adding other apps provides a wider video conference app section.

In the past, the Portal was limited to Facebook apps, like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Workplace. Facebook hopes to welcome those who prefer other services over Facebook’s portal by taking this move. The portal, Portal+, and Portal Mini will be enabled by these services in September. However, Portal TV will not be enabled until the end of 2020.

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Zoom seems to be very welcome because it’s the most popular video call app

Director of product management at Facebook, Micah Collins says:

Zoom support was also confirmed on Wednesday by Amazon and Google. Throughout the following weeks, the video calling app will be coming to Assistant-enabled smart displays and Alexa enabled Echo displays. The owners of these smart tabletop speakers will soon connect their devices to begin zoom calls and plan meetings with their calendars.

These smart devices will profit greatly because  Zoom’s user grew 14 million in March to 173 million in  May. It overtook TikTok in the second quarter of the year 2020 to become the most downloaded application.

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