Zoom is becoming immensely popular for video conferencing during the Coronavirus pandemic. With people forced to work from home, Zoom video calls have skyrocketed in a short amount of time and so is the controversies around it. In the latest, Zoom admits that it does not have 300 million active users.
Zoom, in an earlier blog post, mentioned that it had more than 300 million daily users and that “more than 300 million people around the world are using Zoom during this challenging time.” However, the company later deleted these references from its original blog post. The company then said that it has “300 million daily Zoom meeting participants.” The Verge was able to catch this thing.
There is a difference between daily active user and meeting participant. The daily active user can be counted once per day, however, multiple participants can be counted many times. So, for example, if you have 6 to 7 Zoom video calls in one day, then all the meetings will be counted. “ Only counting meeting participants is an easy, somewhat misleading, way to make your platform usage seem larger than it is,” the report adds.
However, Zoom was quick to respond and it admits the fault was from their end. “We are humbled and proud to help over 300 million daily meeting participants stay connected during this pandemic. In a blog post on April 22, we unintentionally referred to these participants as “users” and “people.” When we realized this error, we adjusted the wording to “participants.” This was a genuine oversight on our part,” the company told The Verge.