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What You Can Do With Zoom When You Aren't Having Meetings

By News Apr 14, 2020 | 10:49 AM

Zoom meetings are more and more becoming the norm with our shelter-in-place society. Mistake are also being made, from leaving the camera on when people have been going to the bathroom, getting dressed, having naked family members show up when classes are being taught and those who wear a nice shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.

Granted most meetings go smoothly and have no issues. While Zoom has great uses for social interaction, there are now new ways to use your Zoom (and Google Hangouts) for so much more. First came the Zoom backgrounds. You can have anything from a space ship to a beautiful field of flowers. Then there are the games…

Yes, games

Someone figured since you have this useful tool for work and communication, why not find a way to make you favorite game come to life. You can now play a ton of games in a virtual world, just as you would if you were in person. Some ideas for you to take advantage of:

  • The company Jackpot Games has 20-30 games you can play…BUT someone has to pay for it. All it takes is for that one person to buy the game and share their screen. They are all sold in packs for around $20 or individually for $5. These aren’t lame games, but stuff that play like a variety of trivia games, weird games life Bidiots (where you bid against your friends for a things like how much you would pay for Siamese Twins and even the original You Don’t Know Jack
  • Charades: no purchase needed on this one. Yep, same game you play a home.
  • Remote Insensitivity. It’s just like Card Against Humanity.
  • Codenames is a classic game. You put in a word, click go. Too confusing for me, but I am sure you are smarter than I.
  • Crossword Puzzles: Any crossword puzzle site is the easy way to do it when you share your screen.
  • Protestgames; For that person who thinks they are Guy Faux or in ANTIFA, this could be offensive, but for people with a sense of humor you would be a fun game.Games like, “Peace, Revolution, War” kind of puts a new spin on Rock, Paper, Scissors
  • Chromecast has an extension you could use to watch TV together and comment online while the show is going on
  • Karoke: Same deal, you hear the song clear as day, the lyrics are on the screen and you sing along.

This is just a small sample of what is out there for your Zoom program. Keep in mind, if you have the free version, you can only be logged in for 40 minutes. There are unlimited plans, if you choose to do that.