Tencent launches VooV Meeting to rival Zoom and other video conferencing platforms

The rise of remote-conferencing apps has been one of the defining chapters of the coronavirus pandemic. Zoom, touted as the 'King of Quarantine Economy', has grown its user base by 30X since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Zoom's popularity has resulted in an overall upsurge in the adoption of video-conferencing technology and virtual collaboration tools. The latest to join the bandwagon is Chinese internet giant Tencent.

Tencent has launched VooV Meeting, a cloud-based HD conferencing platform for businesses. The app hit Google Play Store about a month ago, and has crossed 100,000 downloads. VooV is also available on iOS, Windows, MacOS, and can even be accessed through a browser.

Video conferencing is free for up to 300 members on VooV. The platform charges users beyond that. Attendees can host or join meetings with ease anytime, anywhere.

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Like most e-meeting platforms, VooV enables real-time screen sharing on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. There are instant text messaging and live discussion features too that allow users to communicate without disrupting meetings.

VooV Meeting updates can be integrated with native calendar applications for tracking schedules, reminders, participants, and meeting agenda.

Unlike other video collaboration platforms though, Tencent has integrated nifty features like intelligent video noise reduction, support for beauty filters and background blurring, AI-led speech enhancement, and keyboard click sound minimisers in VooV.

VooV Meeting also comes with "video anti-jitter technology" which delivers a decent conferencing experience with no smearing or lagging. There is a WeChat plugin too, which allows users to share links and join meetings without downloading the VooV app.

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Tencent has stressed on the fact that VooV Meeting is "smooth, secure, and reliable", which looks like a definite jab at Zoom that has been mired in security controversies.

VooV offers comprehensive meeting controls such as turning on the microphone of a specific user, disabling the microphone, or setting other specific permissions to the host for the smooth conduct of meetings.

The meetings conducted on VooV can be recorded conveniently and automatically stored in a dedicated cloud space after encryption. "Backed by Tencent Cloud's seven security labs, user privacy is protected throughout meetings," the company stated.

"High data security is achieved by multiple layers of protection in terms of business data, management mechanism, network device, and access policy," Tencent added.