What are the best ways to start creating a Zoom like app?

With one side of the world running errands to save their businesses from loss, the other side of the world has leveraged even in this pandemic situation. Despite the social distancing and quarantine norms, businesses are operating seamlessly, and it is because of a technological tool called video conferencing.

Video Conference app like Zoom is a way of communication that allows people to have a face-to-face interaction but through a digital environment. This has added a huge relief to some businesses since it does not require an ample amount of time, distance, and money. Every meeting was executed easily, just from the comfort of their homes.

Day-to-day video conferencing apps:

Smart work is better than hard work is a saying that we all know, and there’s no other smart way than to go with the trend. While it is still difficult for people to run their businesses, there are still possible ways to make it better using apps like Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Team, Google Meet, and many more.

Given the situation of COVID-19, an app such as the Zoom app’s revenue has skyrocketed on this pandemic. Though every video-conferencing app has its benefits, there are other features such as sharing the slides, sharing the screen along with virtual meetings, including 1000 participants etc.made it (Zoom) a huge success.

Houseparty is another such application with a vast response in the field of video conferencing. The revenue of the application has increased to 500% from just 2nd March 2020 to 9th March 2020, and it is the sixth most downloaded app in the US and has adored the number one spot in sixteen countries.

To create an application is to satisfy users’ needs. It may be that all the video conference applications have somewhat similar features, but every business has different ventures and needs. It is thus important to regard them and create an application accordingly. When creating an application, it should have a special feature, design, or a revolutionary feature in it. Here, let’s take the Zoom app as an example.

How to create a video conferencing app?

Before going into the creation, it is important to consider two important steps such as,

• Type of platform
• Platform to host your applications such as Laptops, Desktops, Tablets.

It is important to choose whether you want your app to be based native or web-based. For each type of platform, different software languages are used.

Native based app:

To create a native based application, you have to choose if it is going to be an Android-based app or iOS-based app. Two different application versions are to be created.

To create an Android application, software languages such as Java, Swift are used. For iOS, Objective C software is used.

Web-based app:

A web-based application does not need a third-party platform like in Android or iOS.These applications are a convenient form for video-conferencing as they are built into Laptops, Desktops, etc. They can be created using HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Progressive Web app:

Also known as PWA, this application is gaining popularity. This combines both web and native.

App features:

There are a lot of features that a Zoom clone app should contain to make it user-friendly and effective. Each feature of the app is what makes it unique. The features are as follows.

• Chat: While video conferencing is the most important thing in Zoom, you can also enable chat to let user type out the conversation either publicly or privately
• Screen sharing: Just like in the normal meetings, this one is used to share their presentation and pictures, you will have to take care of the security of files.
• Multi-party conference: You must take care of the backend support to make the experience smoother since a video conferencing would only be effective when it has 10 or more participants
• Whiteboard: If the app you are going to create is on an educational basis, then this feature would be useful to the teachers for communicating just like in a classroom experience.
• Live streaming: Through social media, we could already see so many live streaming options, which may be useful for a larger audience, for an important meeting or lecture.
• Recording: Let the user have this experience, which would be useful for them later. Though there already would be storage for the user, it would be better if the app has storage space for itself.
• Mute participants: Creating this feature may give the host of the meeting a chance to not let speak out.
• Filters or icons: This feature can be created to attract users in an informal chat even though the priority is for the business audience.
• Polls: For a host of a meeting to get a response for a specific issue, this feature can be created.
• Pre-call video preview: Creating this feature allows the user to select if they want their face to be visible or invisible in a conference even beforehand.

The development process:

The development process consists of two categories that simply cannot be ignored. They are backend development and UI/UX design.

The former consists of the development of the server for its proper functioning. The latter consists of the designing of the app such that the user would find it more attractive and would allow them to go with the flow.

There are readymade solutions that can be used only for selective steps, but for a video conferencing app, the server should be built from scratch. The design of the app should be in such a way that the navigation is easier.

There should be a team, and the team should consist of project managers, developers such as iOS Developers, Android Developers, UX/UI Engineer, and QA.

Conclusion:

Though there are ways to create an app such as these from scratch, you need a team of people and an expert, and a lot of time to make your app more famous. There is also an alternative solution, such as the Zoom clone.

A Zoom clone script can be readily integrated and customized for every business, which makes it time-efficient, instead of having a whole load of people working on it.

Having said that, start with your idea. We hope that you would develop one such app, which would be helpful to every user.

Author

Marketing is my soul mate and writing is my side kick. Using my writing skills to share the knowledge of app development and upcoming technologies.