Guide to Google Meet: What, How, Why [Updated 2022]

Google has been making great strides in video chatting far before today’s time of social isolation. However, it had invested immense efforts during the pandemic to ensure that its users can enjoy premium video conferencing for personal and professional purposes. One such video communication platform is, of course, Google Meet. It has replaced Google Hangouts completely as far as video chatting is concerned. 

Google Meet has a freemium license and supports popular platforms like Android, iOS, and laptop browsers. In these turbulent times of the pandemic, Google Meet allows its users to conduct video meetings with entire organizational teams and managerial personnel in a secure manner. 

Google Meet also helps organizational employees to stay connected through video conferencing with support from the robust, secure, and global infrastructure of Google Workspace.

It serves as a cost-effective application that allows businesses to collaborate and engage with their existing and potential customers. It is recommended that users of these video and chat platforms from Google should have a Gmail account, but it is not necessary.

How does Google Meet work?

To use Google Meet, you need to:

• Visit meet.google.com or pen the Meet application on your iOS or Android device, or start a meeting directly with Google Calendar.
• Click on ‘Start new meeting’ or enter the provided meeting code.
• Select the Google account you desire to use for joining the meeting.
• Click on the ‘Join meeting’ button. You’re all set.

Once you’ve joined, you can also add others to the meeting if needed. To schedule a video meeting on Google Meet in advance, follow these steps:

• Use Google Calendar to create an event.
• Click the ‘Add guests’ button to add participants to the meeting.
• Enter the names or emails of those you want to invite to the future event.
• Click on the ‘Save’ button to create the event.
• Notify the guest by selecting ‘Send’ when the prompt asks if you want to send an invitation email.

Is Google Meet free?

Google Meet provides the feature of unlimited calling to its users for the initial period of 24 hours. Free users of Google Meet can make calls for 60 minutes. After this period, there are multiple pricing plans for calling, international conferencing, meetings, recordings, live streaming, and administrative controls.  The free plan allows 100 participants to be a part of a meeting.

However, the Google Workspace Essential is a plan where, for US $8 per month, an active user can host 24-hour group meetings for 150 participants at a time. 

Another Google Meet plan is the Google Workspace Enterprise. However, organizations need to contact the sales department of Google for pricing quotations. The maximum number of participants in this plan is 250. With this plan, you can host unlimited meetings.

Why did Google Meet replace Hangouts?

Last year, the video calling feature in Hangouts was no longer supported. It was fully taken over by Google meet. 

When it comes to Google Meet vs Hangouts, a comparative analysis shows that Google Hangouts ranks best for casual group chats. When Hangouts had a video calling feature, users could invite up to 150 individuals to a Hangouts chat; however, only 10 individuals could join a video call at once.

Also, one of the limitations of Google Hangouts is that the view shifts to the person who is talking and does not allow you to see all the other participants at the same time. If you compare Google Meet vs Hangouts here, Meet scores above Hangouts as there are different layouts that you can choose to see the participants’ video tiles in. Such changes slowly led to the end of Hangouts.

Why choose Google Meet over Zoom?

Google Meet and Zoom are two of the most popular video conferencing applications today and offer varied but similar services. 

If we were to consider Google Meet vs Zoom, purely comparing their video conferencing features, Zoom has an edge over Google Meet. Zoom offers comprehensive, advanced options – especially for screen sharing. It allows a higher number of participants for premium users, and it also offers free plans for smaller teams.However, Zoom’s premium plan is more expensive than Google Meet. 

On the other hand, Google Meet offers varied applications and services that enhance video conferencing services and features. It also has bundled features that help organizations in coordinating meetings professionally. 

Here’s a comparative analysis between the features of Google Meet and Zoom - 

However, Google Meet in itself might not suffice, especially if you are using it for your organization. The same rule applies to Zoom. You might need features like recording, transcribing, or even capturing notes from the call automatically, which are not available in both these tools. This is where Rafiki can help. Rafiki captures your calls, stores them, transcribes them, and captures key topics and moments in the calls to glean insights for you. 

Rafiki is closely integrated with both Google Meet and Zoom. To know more about Rafiki and its integrations, click here.