Introduction
This pandemic, if anything has changed or became highly popular, is the way how people work. While most of us were not allowed to step out of our houses, “work from home” became quite popular. Almost every company has asked its employees to work from their homes, keeping in mind the current situation. But during these tough times, more than anything, the demand for video-conferencing apps like Zoom has seen tremendous growth.
It has become an integral part of lives as this is the only medium which is keeping people connected. And not just for work, people are using these video-conferencing apps to stay connected with their loved ones. With lockdown, people are not able to travel to their family, and apps like Zoon are the ones, which are keeping people close, and this has increased the demand for video-conferencing app development in the market.
Let’s look at some Numbers
Talking about the numbers, as per Statista, the number of daily active users (DAU), in the just UK reached around 770 thousand in mid-May 2020.
Coming to the revenue part, as per the trade experts Zoom generated 190 million U.S. dollars during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2020, which was an increase of around 83 million U.S dollars from the last quarter of the previous year.
If we talk just about this pandemic, in the past three months we saw a skyrocketed growth in the revenues of Zoom, and the growth chart is still following the upward trend. By the end of April 2020, the total revenue for this app amounted to $328 million, which was an increase of 169 percent from April 2019. In the coming quarter, Zoom’s revenue is expected to see another jump to around $495 to $500 million, as people are still working from their homes.
Must-have Features of Video-conferencing App
Not every app is the same. The reason why some apps are more popular than the other is all because of the features they offer to their users. But talking about the video conferencing app, every app has more or less the same features, but there are a few essential features, which you must ask your mobile app development company to integrate into your app, as they are the necessities of a video-conferencing app like Zoom. Let’s have a look at a few must-have features of a video-conferencing app:
User Registration
This is the basic and the most important feature for any app. If you are using this app for your official purpose, then a user must register on this app via their official e-mail account or if using for their personal use, they should have an option to register via their social media account.
Many companies offer various plans for users to opt for as per their needs and requirements. At this time, a user must be able to choose the plan they want to go for and must be able to upgrade or change as and when required. This user registration is important to keep the privacy and security of the app intact.
Creating a Profile
Once the user is done with the registration process, he or she must be able to create a profile by mentioning all the required details. This is to ensure that there is no misuse of the app and only the person required has entered your chatroom.
Creating Chatroom
If you are looking for an online meeting app development, this is an important feature which you must offer to your users. Also, most video-conferencing apps restrict the users to only the one with an invite code, who can join your meeting your video call.
Once the virtual chat room is created, a person with a link to connect should be able to enter that chat room and be able to join the meeting or webinar going on, or even can have a chit-chat with their friends and family.
Settings
Talk about any mobile app development solutions, having a setting option is a must-have. Using this option, you can change the settings of your video conferencing apps like volume, screen sharing, image and video sharing, video recording, and a lot more. No app can be made without this feature as everyone likes to customize the app per their individual needs and if they are not able to do so, users tend to reject the app.
Contact List
Now, this is more of a convenient feature, which allows you to add people from your contact list quite easily. Using this feature, users can also create their own list of people with whom they connect the most. Having a feature where users can sync their phonebook contacts and social media contacts, can act as an added advantage for people who are always in a hurry.
Whiteboards
No, here we are not talking about giving a real white-board to users, but what we here meant to say is offering a feature called virtual whiteboard. There are times during meetings when a supervisor or a manager needs to explain something to his team and require a white-board for this. Using pointers and coloring a specific area, users can easily use this virtual board for sharing images, drawing charts and graphs, or even sharing numbers among his team members. By utilizing a whiteboard template, teams can visualize ideas clearly, fostering better collaboration and ensuring that everyone stays on the same page during discussions.
Screen Sharing
This is a must-have feature, as people can share their mobile and desktop screen with their teammates at any given time. This feature comes handy while making a team presentation, or while discussing any project. Video conferencing app development is a complicated process and you must hire mobile developers or a mobile development company, that has already worked upon such projects in the past and knows how to handle the complexities of such projects.
Virtual Hand-Raising
This feature may sound silly but is an important one. Just like school time, when someone needs to answer a particular question, he or she had to raise the hand first. This is done to avoid the chaos that may happen when too many people start talking at a time. The same goes for video calling apps. While planning for cloud meeting app development, you must keep in mind all the necessary features that may help in making the task easier and simpler.
This virtual hand-raise feature is a great option to allow people to talk only when they raise their hands. This feature comes really handy during discussions and webinars where there are too many people, and it’s hard to control who speaks, when.
Data Encryption
Whenever you hire app developers for your cloud meeting app development, make sure to ask them to focus more and more on security. People will trust your app for video calling only when they are sure enough that their data is in safe hands, and one of the best ways of achieving app data security is the end-to-end encryption.
This way you can make sure that no one except for the sender and the receiver can see what is being shared or talked about. Since no one can access the information shared, this maintains the confidentiality of your users’ data.
Push Notifications
This is one of the most important features to have if you are planning to develop an app like Zoom for your business. This way users can easily be notified about all the updates, missed calls, any text messages, and many more. Integrating advanced features like push notification can sometimes be tricky, especially if you are planning to get your app developed for both Android and iOS platforms. You must look to hire android developers or iOS developers who have a comprehensive understanding of technologies used to integrate this feature into your app.
What makes Zoom so popular?
Seeing the popularity of Zoom, most of you must be wondering what makes this app so special. In the past few months, this app has become a synonym for video-conferencing apps. Being an app development company, in the past few months, many people approached us for creating an app just like Zoom for them. This is not only a profitable business today, but will keep on giving you good returns in the years to come.
Also, we have discussed must-have features of a video conferencing app like Zoom, but not all video calling apps to have those features. So, what makes Zoom so popular know the answer to this question, let’s have a look at some of its features.
Number of Users
Zoom knows no limit when it comes to the number of users that can connect to a particular meeting link at a time. Zoom meeting app developers have very strategically developed this app. Talking about the limit, for a meeting session a maximum of 1000 people can attend at a time, but when it comes to attending any webinar, a maximum of 10,000 people can attend it in the view-only mode.
Audio and Video Quality
There is no point in offering a poor quality app to your users and Zoom has taken the quality factor quite seriously. Based on the type of internet you have, one can have high-definition audio and video calls with friends and colleagues, which surely help in improving your user experience. This helps in engaging more and more users to your app as no one likes to see blurred images and broken voice while talking.
Recording
For people who tend to forget things quite easily, Zoom has a feature for recording everything that has been said over the meeting. While getting an online meeting app developed, you may also ask your mobile app development company to integrate this feature as it is quite convenient for people to record everything rather than taking notes.
Notes
Now, for people who like to take notes, do not worry, Zoom has a feature for taking notes too. This feature is quite good for online classes or attending meetings when users are required to take notes.
Virtual Background
This is a great option for people who are not willing to show where they are. Using this feature in Zoom you can change your background and also improve your look by doing some touch-ups, to look more presentable.
Attention Indicator
One of the most used and useful features that Zoom offers is an attention indicator. Using this feature a host can see the engagement rate of his meeting and can see whether or not people are paying attention to what he or she is speaking.
Apart from this, there are a few more features which most video conferencing apps have like:
- Screen-sharing
- Data security
- Reporting
- Documentation
- Virtual-hand raising
- Public Polling
- Calendar scheduling
- Sync contacts
These are the few features, which make Zoom stand out from the crowd but now let’s talk about the steps and the technology stack required to develop an app like Zoom.
What all it takes to create an app like Zoom?
So, an important thing to consider while getting your app developed is that you must take care of multiple needs, every user has different demand and although it is not possible to fulfill all of them but try to integrate as must feature as you can during the time of app development. Also, you always have a chance to integrate new features and upgrade your app as per the new trends and technologies.
You can hire separate mobile app developers for a different platform like if you want to get changes done on the Zoom app for Android platform, you must hire Android app developer, who can easily make changes to your app, or hire iOS developer for your iOS platform. Hiring separate developers can be a great option to bring in more in-depth knowledge if a particular platform. Before you hire a Zoom meeting app developer, be clear with all your requirements and try to explain everything in detail, to get the best out of your online meeting app development.
Now let us see the steps that are involved in video conferencing app development:
Back-end Development
Being the backbone of an app development process, you must look-out for an app development company that has a separate development team of mobile app developers having expertise in creating some outstanding and highly scalable apps for their clients. Scalability is really important as you would require many users to be on your app at the same time. SaaS development services are quite popular among the entrepreneurs these days to get their apps developed.
Front-end Development
If your app is not attractive and appealing, it won’t be able to engage users. Front-end development is a vital part of an app development process and hiring experienced UI/UX designers will ensure that all the elements that are required to attract and retain users are there in your app. Focus on creating a simple, light, and user-friendly app like Zoom. Easy navigation, appealing CTAs, and intuitive graphics play an important role in the success of your video conferencing app.
Technology Used
If you are planning to launch a single platform app first, then you have quite many options to choose from like Swift and Objective-C for iOS app development while Java and Kotlin for Android app development. But if you are planning to launch your cross-platform app, then you may choose between React Native and Flutter. If you are unable to make this choice, you may seek help from a proficient mobile app development firm.
Testing
No app development process is complete without testing the app, and the same goes for online meeting app development. Before launching your app, you must always focus on getting it tested to reduce the chances of any bugs and error in your video conferencing app.
Cost to develop an app like Zoom
This is one of the most difficult sections to write on this blog. Not because we cannot, but because, there is no exact amount that we can quote here. Based on the type of your app, and the kind of features which you want, the cost may vary.
We get so many questions from our clients asking for app development cost for video conferencing app like Zoom, but every time before quoting a price we ask them about all their requirements, and only then we share a quote with them.
So, to make things a bit simpler for you factors like app complexity, features, the size of the app development team, location of app development, app development platform, number of hours required to create an app, etc. are a few that majorly affects the mobile app development cost for a video calling app.
Also, whether you are looking for a ready-made solution, or want to get a customized video conferencing app development solution, may affect the cost. An app like zoom, with some minor changes, may cost around $30,000 to $50,000, while a customized solution, where the development team works on everything from a scratch may cost somewhere around $50,000 and go beyond this, depending upon the features and services you choose.
FAQs
Now that we know about the whole process of developing ann app like Zoom, let us have a look at some of the frequently asked questions, which may come handy while planning for your video conferencing app development.
Question 1: How to choose the right mobile app development company to create an app like zoom?
Choosing the right app development company for getting an app developed like Zoom can be a tedious process, but if you follow the right approach, you will surely find the one which fits all your requirements. Before finalizing anyone for your project you must ask for a few things like the portfolio, years of experience, in what all technologies do they deal with, whether or not they offer post-development services like maintenance and support, hiring models, etc. Asking for these things will not only eliminate your bad options but will also take you to the right video calling app development partner.
Question 2. How to launch an online meeting app with so much competition?
This is one of the most asked questions that we get from our clients. Most of them are skeptical about their app launch and confused how they should proceed with this. As we always say, we understand that there is so much competition in this app category as many big giants like Google, Microsoft, have an app of their own. But also, there is a huge market for video conferencing apps these days and an app with outstanding features definitely can make its own place among these competitors. This is what happened with Zoom. Despite many big apps being there in the market, the vision and innovation took Zoom to where it is. This is what you need to make your app stand out and outshine among the other and a proficient mobile app development company can surely help you in this.
Question 3: Cost to hire video conferencing app developers?
This is a tricky question. Based on the location where you decide to hire mobile app developers for your project the cost may vary. For instance, in places like North America and Europe, you may get developers at $60 to $350 but in countries like India, Latin America, you can easily get zoom meeting app developers at a much lower rate and may cost you around $15 to $100. Choosing the right location of app development may save you quite some money and you can get your app developed in a budget.
