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As millions of students head back to school, it appears that Zoom’s video chat service has folded under the weight of too many meetings. The outage began at roughly 9 a.m. EST and it looks like the web client and portal are the services that are feeling the effects. This is unfortunate for the many that use Zoom’s platform on the web but thankfully, Zoom says that they are currently deploying a fix. According to the company’s latest tweet, services are restored for some users while a permanent fix is still in the works. No ETA on when that will happen.
Zoom hasn’t released any information on what caused the outage but I’d wager it is related to server overload. For some, this outage my come as a sigh of relief as you don’t have to sit through a mind-numbing Monday morning meeting. For others, especially students, hopping into a video chat is crucial to keep on schedule with online learning curriculum. If you have to get online right now and Zoom is still not working, Google Meet is ready to sweep in and save the day.
Since the pandemic started, Google has been working diligently to beef up Meet’s features and capabilities. To add some icing to the cake, the company recently made the Meet video chat platform free to all. To start or join a meeting, all you need is an internet connection and something to chat about. Many educators likely already have full access to Meet’s platform via their institution’s GSuite accounts but smaller schools and even home groups may can still benefit now that Meet is available for the general public. You can create a meeting directly from the Meet website and share you link to whomever you like via email or meeting code. You can find the Google Meet website at the link below.
Zoom has come a long way since its explosive growth began a few months ago and I’m sure that the company will get things ironed out quickly. It’s just good to know that there are alternatives available if you need to shift gears in a pinch and Google Meet is a great option. We’ll keep an eye on the outage and update you when Zoom sounds the all clear.
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