Google Sees Surge In Usage Of Its Videoconferencing Service, Bans Zoom

The wuhanvirus pandemic - and the self-quarantine measures that followed around the world - have put video chat services at the center of people's daily lives.

Google meet is a videoconferencing tool, part of G Suite, Google's line of productivity services that includes enterprise versions of Gmail, Docs and Drive.

According to Google, the wuhanvirus shutdown measures have fueled a surge in usage of Meet, adding more than 2 million new users a day.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google cloud said the service racked up 2 billion minutes of video calls during March and was growing 60% day over day. He said daily usage is 25 times higher than it was in January.

Meet is primarily made for the workplace but G Suite Head Javier Soltero said the usage of Meet has spiked on Saturdays. "That's a really strange thing to think about....It's used in happy hours, family time, DJ parties, etc."

This new trend reflects the effort by people to remain in contact as much as possible, and do as much work as they can even as the world tries to fend off the wuhanvirus pandemic.

There are other services which are even more popular than Google Meet. Skype comes to mind. Many television outlets now use skype to speak to their guests instead of in-studio interviews.

Zoom has become a household name even as it deals with high-profile security issues. Google recently banned Zoom from its employees’ devices. Like Elon Musk's SpaceX which banned the videoconferencing service earlier, Google cited Zoom's “security vulnerabilities.”

US law enforcement warned users about the security vulnerabilities of Zoom. The company last week said that some video calls were “mistakenly” routed through servers in China when they shouldn’t have been.