On Wednesday, Zoom announced a new platform that will be rolled out during the summer. It is built for live events that use both virtual and in-person attendance. Zoom Events, as it is called, expects that the post-pandemic world will find consumers holding on to the convenience and flexibility offered by digital interactions.
Users of the platform will be able to build an event hub that can manage and share events. The platform is also able to customize registration and ticketing, as well as control access to billing and host events, which can be one-time, serial, free, or paid.
What users can expect
The platform will use integrated networking to bring attendees together and track event stats like revenue and the number of people in attendance. Users will have the option of making the events private or posting them on a public directory. Zoom Events can be used with existing Video Webinar or paid Zoom Meetings licenses.
Zoom Events is a natural next step in the evolution of products released by the video conferencing company, which saw increased usage when the pandemic hit. It is an expansion to bigger gatherings.
New use cases informed new products
Wei Li, the head of the Zoom Events platform, said that at the beginning of the pandemic, they observed how users were deploying the video calling platform for things that the creators never imagined. This included providing cooking lessons, classes, and even yoga instruction in real-time.
In response, the company released OnZoom in beta to help content creators and entrepreneurs monetize events held by selling tickets. OnZoom is what has been rebranded and turned into Zoom Events.
Cisco is also working on Webex Events for the same large-scale events purpose, while LinkedIn rolled out a combination of LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live last year for the same purpose.
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