Zoom is selling ticketed virtual events and offering its own mini programs with OnZoom and Zapps

The new OnZoom platform lets event creators sell access to workshops, concerts and more as the world goes virtual in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic
Zapps, a concept similar to WeChat’s mini programs, lets users launch popular services like Dropbox and Trello from within the platform

Apps

Masha Borak

Published: 6:01pm, 16 Oct 2020

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Zoom has two new weapons in its fight against competitors like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The company announced a new events platform called OnZoom and mini programs called Zapps that can be launched from within Zoom itself.

Video communications company unveiled the new products during its three-day online conference called Zoomtopia, which concluded on Friday. The announcements come as Zoom has been facing both skyrocketing growth during the Covid-19 pandemic and increased scrutiny over security issues and concerns about censorship.

OnZoom will allow users to host virtual events up to 1,000 people. Users can search for events to join on the platform, with options that include fitness classes, concerts and stand-up comedy. One of Zoom’s first partners for the new platform is WW International, formerly known as Weight Watchers, which will hold workshops on Zoom.

The platform gives creators a potential new revenue stream as many public venues remain closed because of the coronavirus. Creators of OnZoom events can charge for access using either credit cards or PayPal.

The other big announcement was that people can now use popular productivity apps like Dropbox and Trello without ever leaving Zoom. The apps-within-apps concept looks similar to what some mobile platforms like Tencent Holdings’ WeChat offer through mini programs.

Mini Programs: The apps inside apps that make WeChat so powerful

But Zoom is not calling them mini programs, instead dubbing them Zapps. The company has 35 partners for Zapps so far, including Asana, SurveyMonkey, Coursera and Zendesk.

With work, school and many other aspects of life going virtual during the pandemic, Zoom has been a big winner in an economy that has left many businesses struggling. Zoom has been the go-to tool for many businesses and schools this year, and the challenge has not gone unnoticed by tech giants like Google and Microsoft. Both have sought to increase the stature of their own videoconferencing products with the hopes that tight integration with broader ecosystems like Google Suite and Microsoft Office can help broaden their appeal.

Zoom unveiled Zapps on Wednesday as part of the company‘s online conference Zoomtopia, offering users a way to access other popular platforms without leaving videoconferencing program. Image: Zoom

Competition does not seem to have stunted Zoom’s growth, however. The company’s second-quarter revenue was more than four times higher than the same period last year. Earlier in the year, controversies around Zoom looked like a possible threat to the company’s rapid growth.

Zoom has faced backlash over privacy issues, security flaws and weak encryption that aided what is known as “Zoombombing”. This is when uninvited guests show up in a meeting to harass or disrupt an event. Numerous cases of Zoombombing have received widespread attention online.

The company also drew ire for failing to disclose at first that its service was not fully end-to-end encrypted. In response, Zoom finally unveiled this week an option for all users to choose the security feature, whether they are on a paid or free tier. The current roll-out is a technical preview so Zoom can solicit feedback.

“End-to-end encryption is another stride toward making Zoom the most secure communications platform in the world,” Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan said in a release.

Why are people in China using Zoom?

Zoom has also been caught up in tensions between the US and China, inviting scrutiny after censoring an event about China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown ahead of the June 4 anniversary. The company shut down an activist’s account after a request from the Chinese government.

Following the incident, two US senators called for an investigation into the company, accusing it of disclosing private information on US citizens and censoring on behalf of the Chinese government. Zoom denied it was sharing any data with the Chinese authorities.

Part of Zoom’s challenge is serving users both internationally and in China, where it is one of the few major foreign social platforms that has not been blocked. While founded by a Chinese-American and based in San Jose, California, much of the company’s engineering staff is also based in China.

Just across the border in Hong Kong, Zoom faced another challenge: the passage of a new national security law that loosens the requirements for authorities to request and access data. In July, when the law went into effect, Zoom quickly joined other big tech companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Twitter by announcing that it would halt honouring data requests from the Hong Kong government.

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