Google Meet (original)

Google Meet allows you to start secure online meetings. The service is focused on businesses, allowing users to host free meetings for up to 1 hour with 100 users participating.

Along with offering free services to Google users, users with a G Suite account can start meetings that extend up to 300 hours with 50 additional participants. G Suite users will also be glad that they are given bonus features, like being able to start phone call-ins or gain access to 24/7 customer support.

To start a meeting in Google Meet, users just have to press the New Meeting button that appears in the application. Users are then given a link that they connect and share to through the use of social media, email, private messaging, and more. Many users might find this link system to work a lot better than the traditional code system other group meeting applications are using.

Once users have gotten settled in their meetings, they will notice various functions like being able to share their screen. Google Meet also allows users to directly save every video meeting to their Google Drive account, allowing them to upload their meeting to YouTube or privately send that video via business channels. All of these features are secured so that nobody outside of the meeting will be seeing any private details that they shouldn't be seeing.

While all of these features sound great, users should take note that Google Meet utilizes a lot of data. This might be troublesome for businesses relying on using hotspots or 4G to conduct their meetings.

Overall, Google Meet can be a great application to use for businesses that find themselves using the Google suite of web applications all of the time. Users outside of the Google ecosystem might find it not worthwhile to switch to Google Meet from other video meeting applications.

Pros:

• Integrates well with other Google applications and services.
• Supports a large amount of participants per meeting.
• Available for free with some limitations.

Cons:

• Doesn't differ itself too much from other video meeting applications.
• Utilizes a lot of data.
• The 1 hour limitation for free meetings might be too little for many companies.