The video calling revolution is dead

Three years ago, video chat seemed about to revolutionize the way we work. All we actually got was a slightly better video chat.

It is clear that video communication has become more important for many with the Covid pandemic. With people suddenly forced to use video chat for work, school, and even to visit with their families, there has been a rush of interest in apps and platforms that promise to make the concept of sitting in front of a webcam a little more exciting.

Many companies have introduced ways to watch videos together. Meta has launched Messenger Rooms for 50 people. The video messaging apps Houseparty and Marco Polo have exploded. jump in Try to make virtual events feel like an in-person conference. Mmhmm ​​offered fun options and effects to make video calls less like staring directly into someone’s window. Snap Camera has become a popular way to add filters to video calls. Verizon has even invested so much in videoconferencing that they picked up BlueJeans for it About 400 million dollars and making vague promises about integrating it with 5G.

Meanwhile, Zoom became a verb and a household name practically overnight. It launched an app store, an events platform for everything from yoga classes to doctor visits to global conferences, and a whole host of other productivity tools with video chat at the center. The company suddenly seemed like the future of life, business, school and everything. She even partnered with Meta to bring her in Zoom to Meta Horizon workrooms VR productivity space.

Even after all that, the actual video chatting experience is probably at its most boring. Now that as many people are getting together as they did before the pandemic began (Zoom is even calling for some employees back in the office), the market is largely run by tech giants and the pace of new and interesting features has slowed to practically nothing. This is the case with many of the tech changes brought about by the pandemic, but it was supposed to be the video that stuck.

Hobbin offloaded its business activities and webinars to RingCentral as part of a “strategic relationship” Announced earlier this month. Mmmm is still around, but I haven’t come across anyone outside of my colleagues or tech journalists who has ever mentioned the tool. Houseparty, a group video chat app from the developers of Meerkat, was acquired by Epic Games in 2019 but shut down in 2021. Verizon has just announced that it is shutting down BlueJeans. Heck, Snap Close Snap Camera.

So what does the landscape look like now?

Zoom is still a strength. I attend briefings and meetings using the platform all the time, though Vox Media itself is a Google Meet site. But Zoom calls themselves feel remarkably similar to what they did early in the pandemic, even with added features like facial effects, avatars, and AI summaries. Zoom is increasingly trying to find work beyond video chat, though I don’t know anyone who uses Slack-like team chat or its email and calendar services, and I think I’ve attended one event on Zoom’s virtual events platform.

Google Meet has come the furthest. Google wisely rebranded the app from “Hangouts Meet” to “Google Meet” in April 2020, separating it from the confusing and now-dead Hangouts brand. Over time, Google has addressed some of the obvious missing features and improved the app’s overall stability. I generally don’t think about how to use it when I’m actually using it, which Google should take as a win, but I still wouldn’t say using Google Meet is a joy.

Microsoft continues to invest in video conferencing features for its Teams collaborative app, and I’ll give the company some credit for integrating Snapchat Lenses to add some fun to video calls. But there’s something ironic about Microsoft investing so much in another direct way to video chat when they already have Skype.

The future of video chatting apps isn’t all bleak. Apple has some interesting ideas coming with macOS Sonoma, some borrowed from others: you’ll be able to show your face in a little animated bubble, make yourself much bigger so that the focus is more on you, and make gestures to trigger animated reactions. It’s great that these things were likely to be everywhere once Sonoma came out—especially since they’re all supposed to work with apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco’s Webex—but are animated fireworks the best thing we can add to a video chat?

For hanging out on video calls with your friends, Discord Activities allows you to do things like play games with your friends or watch YouTube videos together. If your workplace uses Slack, I actually recommend using its video pools for short, impromptu conversations similar to the deskside conversations I had when I worked in an office.

But it really seems that the time to express understanding about video chatting apps is over. Sure, Zoom and Google Meet and Teams are all very good at what they do. It’s great that things like custom backgrounds and reactions to emojis are so popular no matter what app you’re using. But when I’m on a video call, I’m still pretty much staring at people’s boxes, and apps have mostly become utilities that I’m not excited to use.

Video was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s just another way to pick up the phone.