icon caret-left icon caret-right instagram pinterest linkedin facebook twitter goodreads question-circle facebook circle twitter circle linkedin circle instagram circle goodreads circle pinterest circle

Fading Out: Aging and Beyond RSS feed

Index of blog posts

 
Covid-19 (Coronavirus pandemic, 2020)
You, your body, and your health
Health care, medicine, and the health care system
How we die (managing and honoring the end of life)
Life, home, and estate management
Justice and injustice
Telling our life stories
Wisdom and entertainment

Covid-19 (Coronavirus pandemic, 2020)


COVID-19: politics and the stock market vs. science and survival (the good, the bad, and the ugly)
Coronavirus: How to minimize your risks (the practical stuff)
Recommended reading about pandemics (novels and nonfiction books and articles)
Lost to the coronavirus pandemic
On keeping a diary or journal of the pandemic
Poems for the Pandemic
55+ things to do (listen, watch, read, share, do) during the pandemic
How prepared are you for disaster?

You, your body, and your health


Top sites for health news and advice
Medical links for patients, families, and caregivers
Where journalists get their medical news and information (Writers and Editors site)
Do you trust your doctor? How can you protect yourself?
Ratings for hospitals, doctors, surgeons, home health agencies, nursing homes
You, drug-resistant superbugs, and what's for dinner?
The flu: what you need to know
Overcoming flu vaccine hesitancy: The caregiver's resource sheet
We are what we eat? Read this, get healthy, feel better! (Part 1 of 2). See also Part 2 (with links to more good articles).
Healthy food that isn't yucky
Home remedies for relieving sciatica pain
The truth (and controversy) about chronic (late-stage) Lyme disease
Resources for finding service dogs, therapy dogs, and other types of assistance dogs

[Back to Top]



Health care, medicine, and the health care system


Why U.S. medical costs are so high -- and where the system needs fixing
Taking the mystery out of health care prices
Drugs, Big Pharma, conflicts of interest, and why U.S. patients pay too much for medication
Ratings for hospitals, doctors, surgeons, home health agencies, nursing homes
Doctors rebel against a re-certification test that costs $23,600 per doctor
The anatomy of medical error Human factor scientists call skill-based errors slips and rule-based and knowledge-based errors mistakes. See also an Update on medical errors
Exposing abuse and neglect in a chain of brain injury rehab centers
Lead wars and the health of children
Organizations serious about improving U.S. health care
Talking points about the Affordable Care Act
The NIH Clinical Center: A national healthcare treasure
Nine great TED talks on improving health care

[Back to Top]



How we die (managing and honoring the end of life)


Preventing fraud, elder abuse, and guardianship problems
Three cases for better management of dying
Autopsies: when and why and how
Farewell to T.L Hawkins, part 1 (October 2014)

 Read More 
Be the first to comment

On keeping a diary or journal of the pandemic

What better time to keep a diary or journal than these strange times trying to duck a weird and dangerous coronavirus. Write about how life sheltering in place (and losing money fast) is with you. These historic times will be best recalled not by famous decisions or the tweet history of our demented president but by accounts of our daily lives trying to survive this sneaky killer.
Why We Should All Be Keeping Coronavirus Journals (Katherine Sharp Landdeck, Time, 4-27-2020)
What We Can Learn From 1918 Influenza Diaries (Meilan Solly, Smithsonian, 4-13-2020) Though much has changed since 1918, the sentiments shared in writings from this earlier pandemic are likely to resonate with modern readers. These letters and journals offer insights on how to record one's thoughts amid a pandemic.
What Historians Will See When They Look Back on the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 (The New York Times) Universities and institutions are inviting the public to share their experiences during the coronavirus 2020 pandemic and its aftermath.
The race to save the first draft of coronavirus history from internet oblivion (Abby Ohlheiser and Tanya Basu, MIT Technology Review, 4-21-2020) How researchers, archivists, and citizens are racing to preserve a record of how we lived and changed during this strange period of history.
12 Ideas for Writing Through the Pandemic with The New York Times (New York Times)
Students' Journals Could Be 'Primary Sources' (Lauren S. Brown, MiddleWeb, 4-10-2020)
Share Your Story: Remembering COVID-19 Front-Line Workers (Meghan Collins Sullivan, The Coronavirus Crisis, NPR, 4-29-2020)
New York State Library Covid-19 Personal History Initiative The state is asking New York residents to share journal entries about living during the COVID pandemic.
Why You Should Start a Coronavirus Diary (Jen A. Miller, NY Times, 4-13-2020) It’ll help you organize your thoughts during these difficult times, and may help educate future generations.
How Can I Keep a Personal, Private Journal Online? (Alan Henry, LifeHacker, 1-14-13) How can I set up my journal so I can edit and update it online on my phone or laptop without the world seeing it? I want a diary, not a blog!
Guide to keeping an audio journal (Journaling Habit) Evernote and Onenote both have audio recording features that can be used on desktop or mobile.
The Art of Audio Journaling: How to Think and Write Out Loud on Your Way to Work
A Coronavirus Chronicle: April 15, 2020 (Local correspondents, New Yorker, 4-27-2020) Twenty-four hours at the epicenter of the pandemic.
The ER diaries: a coronavirus case that nearly broke me A California nurse’s journals from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. A patient’s anguish is enough to crack even a medical worker’s professional resolve.  A nurse's coronavirus journal: 'The new normal of this pandemic sinks in' (The Guardian, 3-24-2020) "For the first time in the decade I’ve been working as a healthcare worker, the warning to stay home has been heard and obeyed by the masses."
My Students Are Finally Keeping a Journal (Jeanne Bonner, Brevity, 4-27-2020) "Yet on a whim, I wondered if using the forum tool to create a weekly diary might make sense so I inserted one during the first week of our confinement that was simply called 'Coronavirus Journal.' I told them they should not see it as a mandatory assignment but rather as a refuge.... Judging by the voluminous entries some have posted, they are galvanized in this hot-house atmosphere of illness and fear. Forced suddenly to live in new ways – or in some cases, return to living in old ways, specifically with their parents! – they've received a jolt of inspiration paired with a desperate need to vent their frustrations."
The Quarantine Diaries (New York Times) Around the world, the history of our present moment is taking shape in journal entries and drawings.
Quarantine diary from author Rick Bragg in Alabama (Celebs, Hello News, 4-18-2020)
'Write It Down': Historian Suggests Keeping a Record of Life During Pandemic (Anne E. Bromley, Virginia News, 3-17-2020)
Dear Diary, the World Is Burning (Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 4-10-2020) On the value of private thoughts during a public crisis.
Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project (National Women's History Museum) "We invite individuals from all ages, backgrounds, cultures, and socio-economic circumstances to be a part of living history by keeping a journal in 30, 60, 90, 120-day, or any longer OR shorter increments, and contributing their journalistic efforts to the National Women’s History Museum. If life gets in the way of a daily, month-long journal, that’s okay! Simply commit to what you can or what you already have. You do not have to journal daily.
"The kicker, alas: By agreeing to donate your journal, it is understood that the purpose and intent of the gift is to transfer and assign all rights, title, and interest in the journal that you may possess to the National Women's History Museum. A Deed of Gift will be issued to you from the Museum. The NWHM and/or the Museum's collaborative project partner, The New York Times Company, may make discretionary use of the donated materials to include, but not limited to, exhibition, display, publication, digitization for preservation and access purposes, and making materials available for research and future scholarship. The NWHM reserves the right to decline any submission deemed inappropriate for the project." (Make sure you have the right to use your own story, especially as they reserve the right to decline to use it.)

Be the first to comment

RECOMMENDED READING ABOUT PANDEMICS

Here are links to a few recommended books (both fiction and nonfiction) and articles (and one serial documentary) about pandemics. Let me know in comments if I've overlooked anything.

 

A Documentary:
 Pandemic: How to Prevent an Attack (Netflix)

 

NOVELS ABOUT DISEASES AND PANDEMICS
Blindness by José Saramago (1995). A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one.A powerful and haunting novel about humanity's will to survive against all odds during an epidemic.
The End of October by Lawrence Wright (“An eerily prescient novel about a devastating virus that begins in Asia before going global"~New York Post). See This Is 'Creepy': Lawrence Wright Wishes His Pandemic Novel Had Gotten It Wrong (Mary Louise Kelly, All Things Considered, NPR, 4-28-2020)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. A flight from Russia lands in middle America, its passengers carrying a virus that explodes "like a neutron bomb over the surface of the earth.... "No more trains running under the surface of cities ... No more cities ... No more Internet " Survivors become scavengers, roaming the ravaged landscape or clustering in pocket settlements, some of them welcoming, some dangerous. What's touching is the novel's ode to what survived, in particular the music and plays performed for wasteland communities by a roving Shakespeare troupe, the Traveling Symphony, whose members form a wounded family of sorts. The story shifts deftly between the fraught post-apocalyptic world and, twenty years earlier, just before the apocalypse, the death of a famous actor, which has a rippling effect across the decades.
The Plague (novel by Albert Camus) About which, see Camus and the Political Tests of a Pandemic (Steve Coll, The New Yorker, 5-19-2020) Coll mentions this W.H. Auden poem: September 1, 1939. It can be uncanny to encounter a leader "whose advisers cannot bear initially to acknowledge the catastrophe, or even to speak aloud the name of the disease that is its cause."
Zone One Colson Whitehead's wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel. A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown's Fort Wonton reclaim the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One and our hero is helping clear lower Manhattan of its remaining feral zombies.
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe (published in 1722). Also available as a free PDF. "Bring out your dead!" calls the bell-ringing collector in this classic fictional account of the epidemic of bubonic plague — known as the Black Death — that ravaged England in 1664–1665.
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks. An unforgettable tale, set in 17th century England, of a village that quarantines itself to arrest the spread of the plague.
Dooms Day Book (Oxford Time Travel) by Connie Willis (Oxford Time Travel). The story of a history student in 2048 who is transported to an English village in the 14th century. She arrives mistakenly on the eve of the onset of the Black Plague. Her dealings with a family of "contemps" in 1348 and with her historian cohorts lead to complications as the book unfolds into a surprisingly dark, deep conclusion. Winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (a post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son wandering through the ruins of civilization, reason for which unspecified)
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. A novella (published in 1912) in which Venetian authorities and businesses try to hide or underplay the seriousness of a cholera epidemic. See Charles Mudede's article Death in Venice and the History of Underreporting a Pandemic.
World War Z a horror-comic novel by Max Brooks, posing as an "oral history" of a virus that originated in China and spread across the world, transforming millions of people into zombies. Message: "The threat is not the virus or the zombies, but our response, especially denial and panic."
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. Against a backdrop of recurring civil war and recurring cholera epidemics, Márquez explores death, decay and the idea of lovesickness as disease—in this turn-of-the-century chronicle of a unique love triangle.
The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni. A sweeping novel set in northern Italy during the years of Spanish occupation, well-known for its remarkable account of the Italian plague of 1629-1631, and the devastating impact the epidemic had on Milan. The archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Borromeo, is shown going into the pest houses, willing to lay down his life to look after the poorest and most unwell people in his flock.

 

NONFICTION BOOKS ABOUT PANDEMICS
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (1995) by Laurie Garrett. (She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next? (Frank Bruni, NY Times, 5-2-2020) Years of debt and collective rage.
Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease by Wendy Orent
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman. "Many of the disruptive forces at work in the 14th century — war, religious schisms, the plague — played out again during the 20th century (hence the book's title)."~ New York Times
1491 by Charles Mann, on how the arrival of disease in North America changed history
The Miraculous Fever-Tree by Fiammetta Rocco, a rich and wonderful history of quinine – the cure for malaria.
Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U.S. Army during World War I by Carol R. Byerly. The startling impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic on the American army, its medical officers, and their profession.
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry. "A sobering account of the 1918 flu epidemic, compelling and timely." ~ Boston Globe
World Epidemics: A Cultural Chronology of Disease from Prehistory to the Era of Zika by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. Johnson's narrative of the 1854 cholera epidemic in London is humanized by his portrayal of the people who suffered through it, including the intrepid doctor, John Snow, who ultimately traced the outbreak to contaminated water. 
Scurvy:How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sailby Stephen Bown (read excerpt here
Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs by epidemiologist Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
World Epidemics: A Cultural Chronology of Disease from Prehistory to the Era of Zika by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, the 2012 nonfiction bestseller by Richard Preston, as well as The Demon in the Freezer (about first major bioterror event in the United States—the anthrax attacks in October 2001)
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts. “The story of these first five years of AIDS in America is a drama of national failure, played out against a backdrop of needless death....It is a tale that bears telling, so that it will never happen again, to any people, anywhere.”~Randy Shilts
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn. The history lesson you probably didn't get in high school.
Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden

 

ARTICLES, STORIES, and ARCHIVES:
Bingeing on Doom: Expert on the ‘Black Death’ Attracts Cult Following (JoNel Aleccia, KHN, Los Angeles Times, 7-22-2020) Fascinating article by the woman who narrates The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague, "a video series that became must-see TV this spring when it aired on Amazon Prime, just as stuck-at-home 21st-century humans were reeling from the coronavirus crisis. In 24 surprisingly compelling episodes, Armstrong introduced the devastation of the mid-14th century to doom-obsessed modern viewers. The flea-driven plague, also known as the “Great Mortality,” overran Eurasia and North Africa from 1347 to 1353, killing tens of millions of people and wiping out half of Europe’s population....“The Black Death” has spurred a broad cult following for Armstrong — even as it underscores the dismaying parallels between the great plague and the deadly disease now circling the globe."
'The impossible has already happened': what coronavirus can teach us about hope (Rebecca Solnit, a 'long read,' The Guardian, 4-7-2020) In the midst of fear and isolation, we are learning that profound, positive change is possible. Having lived through and written extensively about past disasters, Rebecca Solnit senses as well as anyone what comes next. We're still in the middle of a global battle, but slowly talk of "after" will come, and we will need guidance from those who have endured similarly treacherous stretches. "It is too soon to know what will emerge from this emergency," Solnit writes, "but not too soon to start looking for chances to help decide it."
The Masque of the Red Death (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey.
A Historian's View of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Influenza of 1918 (David Remnick, New Yorker, 3-25-2020) Remnick interviews historian John M. Barry about what that historic pandemic can tell us about our current situation and the future.
How the 1918 Pandemic Frayed Social Bonds (Noah Y. Kim, The Atlantic, 3-31-2020) The influenza pandemic did long-lasting damage to relationships in some American communities. Could the mistrust have been prevented?
How Pandemics Change History (Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 3-3-2020) In his new book, "Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present," Frank M. Snowden, a professor emeritus of history and the history of medicine at Yale, examines the ways in which disease outbreaks have shaped politics, crushed revolutions, and entrenched racial and economic discrimination.
The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 (National Archives) Selected records reveal details about daily life at the time.
Journalist finds lessons in the history of pandemics (Bara Vaida, Covering Health, AHCJ, 4-16-2020) Q&A with Beth Skwarecki, author of the book Outbreak: 50 Tales of Epidemics that Terrorized the World (writing only 1,000 words about each is not easy!).
What Shakespeare Actually Wrote About the Plague (Stephen Greenblatt, The New Yorker, 5-7-2020)

 

SEE ALSO
On keeping a diary or journal of the COVID-19 pandemic (blog post)
Coronavirus: the good, the bad, and the practical
Covering the coronavirus as a journalist
Pandemic: The Big Picture
What to do or not do (disinfecting, among other things) and how or how not to do it
(
Social distancing, sheltering in place, and lockdown
Testing: what you need to know
Expanding contact tracing
Reliable sources of information and updates about COVID-19
Coronavirus maps and numbers
The search for anti-viral treatments
COVID-19's economic impact
Problems with personal protective equipment (PPE)
Combatting the misinformation epidemic/campaign (and persuading skeptics there's a crisis)
Trump’s handling of the pandemic
Covering the COVID-19 pandemic: Resources for journalists
Who is harmed most by Covid19?
Politics, government, and the coronavirus
Where things went wrong in the U.S.
Where in the world things went right
Coronavirus: A Primer

Be the first to comment

Poems for the Pandemic

Poem by Kitty O'Meara

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.  And listened more deeply.  Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.  Some met their shadows.  And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.  And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

 

Poem  by Laura Kelly Fanucci

"When this is over, may we never again take for granted:

A handshake with a stranger, full shelves at the store, conversations with neighbors, a crowded theatre...

Friday night out, the taste of communion, a routine checkup, the school rush each morning...

Coffee with a friend, the stadium roaring, each deep breath...

A boring Tuesday, Life itself.

When this ends, may we find that we have become more like the people we wanted to be...

we were called to be....

we hoped to be and may we stay that way....

better for each other because of the worst."

LKM

 

See also

Lockdown A poem by Brother Richard (Irish Central, 3-23-2020)

Pandemic by Lynn Ungar

Be the first to comment

Using Zoom for a family or office teleconference call (or class)

Posted by Pat McNees. Updated 3-18-23.
Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event (Zoom)
Getting Started on Windows and Mac (Zoom Help Center)
How to reduce eyeglass glare on Zoom. (Rosemary Ravinal) Tips for avoiding excessive glare on your glasses when on Zoom.
Enhancing your video in Zoom (Zoom)
Changing Your Virtual Background Image (Zoom)
Video tutorials (Zoom) 3.5 minutes each.
Every Type of Zoom Call Participant, Illustrated by Cats (Jack Shepherd, Tenderly/Medium, 5-18-2020) Which one are you? The one who's too close to the camera? The one who refuses to use video but has the most glamorous headshot? The one with the wacky background? The one who's busy with something else? The one who can't get the camera placement right?
A virtual funeral changes perspective (Jack ElHai, Medium, 4-13-2020) "I recently attended a virtual funeral broadcast with Zoom, and the result was that I felt distant from the deceased but close to my fellow mourners."
Using Zoom? Take these steps to protect your privacy.(Charlie Sorrel, Cult of Mac, 3-31-2020)

How we organized one of the largest virtual U.S. journalism events to date (Stefanie Murray and Joe Amditis, Center for Cooperative Media, Medium, 5-20-2020) 'We wanted to make sure we kept some of the Collaborative Journalism Summit’s personal hallmarks without turning it into a one-way broadcast. We alerted our sponsors, speakers and participants as soon as we could — then we made registration free. And once we announced we would host in place instead of in person, registrations shot through the roof; we ended up with just under 750 registrations by the time the conference began. (Typically, the Summit attracts 150–175 people.) Zoom was the leading early contender for a platform choice, because it was the program most people were using for video conferencing and because it was the one the Center used. But we also explored other options, including Twitch, Google Hangouts, and YouTube Live. We didn’t look too closely at Blue Jeans, GoToMeeting, Livestream, or Microsoft Teams, which are a few of the more popular options out there.'
How to Keep Your Zoom Chats Private and Secure (David Nield, Wired, 4-5-2020) Trolls. Prying bosses. Zoom's a great video chat platform, but a few simple steps also make it a safe one. Nield also explains pros and cons of alternative video chat platforms Google Duo, Facetime (for Apple devices only), Webex (Cisco), GoToMeeting, plus software without full end-to-end encryption. Skype, Slack, and Facebook Messenger. These instructions may help us relax about Zoom's insecurities. (H/T Jeanne Bohlen)
Zoom Help Center
An Introduction to Zoom for Teachers (Nicole Rose Whitaker and Susan Shapiro, New Yorker, 4-10-2020)
Zoom Support How-to instructions during the coronavirus: video tutorials, on-demand training sessions, live daily demos, etc.)
Claude Kerno's instructions for using Zoom: Installing it, Using it Hosting it, and so on.

• One village is using a pro version with two users, one ED and the other 'generic" Zoom leader (a role filled by several members). They saved money by purchasing a year's subscription.  You can use your smartphone to start a meeting, but one drawback is that the gallery view on a cell phone appears to be 4 people max (of which one is you). "so for a function with more than 5-6 people you would be scrolling scrolling scrolling to see everyone." One problem: the members who do not have internet service in their home are also likely not to have a smartphone. H/T Vicki Dow 
We live in Zoom now. Zoom is where we go to school, party, and socialize (Taylor Lorenz, Erin Griffith and Mike Isaac, NY Times, 3-17-2020)
The Great Zoom-School Experiment (Lizzie Widdicombe, New Yorker, 4-2-2020) With schools closed, some students are transitioning to remote learning, and some parents to home-school instruction and technical assistance. “The teachers were afraid that the kids were not going to coöperate, and they wouldn’t be able to manage a virtual classroom.” But Micaela Bracamonte, the founder and head of the Lang School, insisted that they try it. All across the world, students and parents are involved in a vast cyber-education experiment.
Now that everyone's using Zoom, here are some privacy risks you need to watch out for (Rae Hodge, CNet, 1-1-2020)
Why Zoom became so popular (Ashley Carman, The Verge, 4-3-2020) Its selling points also introduce privacy and security risks
Forget Facebook: Zoom is the tech industry’s newest problem child (Ainsley Harris, Fast Company, 3-31-20) " But there is a dark underside to this company. It has a child abuse problem. And a porn problem. And a privacy problem. Does anyone care? Federal prosecutor Austin Berry referred to Zoom as “the Netflix of child pornography” in his closing remarks, according to The New York Times....“Zoom really has no serious value if it doesn’t protect personal privacy,” Doc Searls, an author and research director at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, wrote in a blog post. “That’s why they need to fix this.”
New York Attorney General Looks Into Zoom’s Privacy Practices (Danny Hakim and Natasha Singer, NY Times, 3-30-2020) As the videoconferencing platform’s popularity has surged, Zoom has scrambled to address a series of data privacy and security problems.
‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform (Kari Paul, The Guardian, 4-2-2020) The company has seen a 535% rise in daily traffic in the past month, but security researchers say the app is a ‘privacy disaster’
Social Distancing Is Helping This Billionaire Ride Out the Market Rout (Devon Pendleton, Bloomberg, 3-16-2020) Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom Video Communications Inc., added $20 million to his net worth Monday while the S&P 500 plunged 12% -- worst day for stocks since 1987. See also Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! The Exclusive Inside Story Of The New Billionaire Behind Tech’s Hottest IPO (Alex Konrad, Forbes, 4-19-19)
Google Puts Zoom in Its Crosshairs (Michael Figueroa, Marker/Medium, 4-30-2020) As security issues plague Zoom, Google’s rapid response threatens to topple Zoom’s position as the king of videoconferencing apps. Zoom’s popularity exploded as people around the world were forced to shelter in place and sought solutions to virtually engage with co-workers, classrooms, families, and friends. By offering a free plan that anyone can sign up for and a group-friendly, high-definition interface that has proven resilient despite its sudden growth in usage, daily active users on Zoom leaped from 10 million to over 300 million in just five months. But Google is now hot on its heels. See Zoom’s Fatal Flaw (Sameer Singh, Marker/Medium, 4-20-2020) In exchange for viral growth, the video conferencing startup left itself open to copycat competitors. Zoom’s business model is often conflated with Slack even though they are distinct products.


---Blue Jeans Host and manage live interactive events, town halls and webcasts for large audiences around the world.
---Cisco Webex Meetings
---Crowdcast Sign up and watch a demo
---Duo (Google's consumer version of video calling)
---Facebook Live
---GlobalMeet Collaboration (1-866-755-4878)
---GoToMeeting (LogMeIn) 7-day free trial, various pricing packages after
---Hangouts Meet (aka Google Meet, geared toward business use)
---Houseparty (a face to face social network: “Where being together is as easy as showing up” — a cross-platform video chat app)
---LifeSize (high definition videoconferencing)
---Livestream Deliver unforgettable virtual events and conferences. Securely engage your workforce remotely. Monetize your global audience.
---Microsoft Teams
---Skype (Microsoft) Host a video meeting in one click. Video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, the Xbox One console, and smartwatches over the Internet.
---Twitch Not just for gamers.
---WhatsApp (Facebook, the default messaging service in Europe for small groups--four people max)
---YouTube Live (Google owns YouTube)
---Zoho Meeting
---Youtube Live vs Facebook Live Compared to Online Video Platforms How do the various systems compare?
Not sold on Zoom? Here are the 8 best Zoom alternatives to consider.. (Mitja Rutnik @MRutnik, The Best, Android Authority, 3-26-2020)
5 Zoom alternatives to keep you connected during COVID-19 crisis (Charlie Sorrel, Cult of Mac, 4-2-2020)
Video Conferencing Software Showdown: Zoom vs. GoToMeeting.(Heather Mandel, Zapier, 2-01-19) "If you're just starting out or are a small-to-medium-sized business that only needs to accommodate up to 100 participants, Zoom can provide you with a fully-featured video conferencing solution for a lower price—or even no price depending on your needs. But if you're a larger organization that regularly needs to accommodate 150 to 250 attendees and can benefit from unlimited cloud storage and a no-minimum-host requirement, GoToMeeting may end up being a better value for you."
Microsoft Teams vs Zoom: Which Platform is Better for Your Organization.(Unify Square)
Zoom vs. Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet: Which Top Videoconferencing App Is Best? (Gadjo Sevilla, PC Mag, 4-15-2020) How three of the top contenders stack up.

[Back to Top]  Read More 
Be the first to comment