Technology connects us while we are apart, better to say, maintaining social distancing. It helps us to keep us safe and productive. Over the past few months, we have actually realized the power of technology through video meetings. To help making life easier, Google is again all set to give us a new surprise in the name of Google Meet.
After the monumental change to Google Shopping in the last week, Google has declared another great surprise to its users. Google premium video conferencing product, Google Meet, is now free for anyone who wants to use it.
Google Meet, previously known as Google Hangouts Meet, was only available to G Suite customers. Last month, the premium version of this product was made free to existing G Suite users. Now, people can join a premium Meet call without paying. The only condition, they must be the paid member of the G Suite account.
Google Meet is a video conference product, used by teams, groups, businesses, schools, organizations, and higher education learning institutions. For the first time, Google has made it available for the individual. Now anyone can broadcast a call on Google Meet for anyone to join without being a G Suite customer. People, who are already G Suite customers, will enjoy some additional perks.
The benefit of Google Meet for different categories:
Now, this free video conferencing product by Google is going to help different people in different ways.
- Google Meet for Individuals:
Google Meet was designed to be a collaborative tool for business people, and it has never been available outside of G Suite before. But, now Google has made it available for individual users. That means an individual can create a Google Meet account and host their video calls without being a member of G Suite.To make it clear on how an individual can use Google Meet, Google suggests hosting book clubs, fitness classes, happy hours with friends, neighborhood meetings, and so on.
The meeting would be limited to 60 minutes for free products. However, Google has still not enforced any time limit till September 30. - Groups and Teams:
Organizations that are already G Suite customers could use this product earlier too. However, now every group, team, or organization can have access to G Suite Essentials without being an existing customer.
G Suite Essentials enable organizations to access advanced features, like larger meetings, dial-in phone numbers, and meeting recordings. Google has made G Suite Essential free until 30th September. - Businesses and organizations:
Google is offering three benefits to the new and current enterprise customers to access Meet till September 30. They are –Free access to Meet’s advanced features for all G Suite customers. They can now run a live stream for up to 100,000 viewers within their domain.
Existing G Suite customers will get free additional Meet licenses without any amendments to their current contract.
All enterprise customers will enjoy Free G Suite Essentials for the enterprise.+
- Schools and higher education institutions:
Now schools and higher education institutions can sign up on G Suite for free. And then they will be able to use G Suite for Education at no added cost.The new update to Google Meet will be rolling out in the coming weeks, and the free users will be able to sign up in early May. According to Google,
“Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to our business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including an expanded tiled view.”
The company has also clarified that all users might not be able to create meetings immediately after signing up. This is the reason the rollout process is expected to take a few weeks.A timed rollout is specially designed to ensure Google Meet continues to offer a secure and reliable experience as the product expands to more users. Users can also signup at meet.google.com to get notified as soon as the product is available.