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topicnews · August 27, 2024

X is testing a video conferencing tool

X is testing a video conferencing tool

Elon Musk’s X has already announced that it wants to compete with LinkedIn in job postings and PayPal in payments. Now it wants to compete with companies like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams with a video conferencing tool.

One of X’s employees, Chris Parkposted last week that the company held its first internal meeting using the tool. Park claimed that the team’s initial feedback was positive and that the company will likely work on features that allow speakers to be pinned and better notifications that show when people join or leave.

X owner Elon Musk responded to the post with a fire emoji, which is the closest thing to an official confirmation that X is no longer responding to press inquiries under Musk’s leadership.

An app researcher who P4mui on the platform showed that users can create new meetings directly from the iOS app, either immediately or scheduled for a later time, similar to other online conferencing tools.

Another app researcher Nima Owjipointed out that the conference feature could allow hosts to set a unique code for each meeting that participants must enter when joining.

As with many feature teasers on Musk’s own platforms, there is no clear release date or rollout plan for the conference feature yet.

Notably, X already enables live video streaming through its Spaces product. Tools like Zoom and Google Meet allow users to switch between video conferencing and seminar-style streaming, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if X merged the two products.

It’s also worth keeping a close eye on how the platform rolls out the feature. Earlier this year, when X introduced the calling feature, the social network turned it on by default for everyone. There were also privacy issues, such as no protection against IP address masking by default.

Before X makes the conferencing feature available to all users, privacy and security controls need to be carefully examined.

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