Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google has been rapidly iterating on Meet, given the demand for enterprise video conferencing. The company also made Google Meet free for personal Gmail accounts, and is now extending the availability of longer calls to June 2021.
Last March, Google said premium “Hangouts” — at the time — Meet features would be free for all G Suite customers rather than restricting some capabilities to higher (paid) tiers. This includes 250-person meetings, internal live streaming, and saving call recordings to Drive.
When Meet went free for regular users and was integrated with Gmail a month later, Google said it wouldn’t enforce a 60-minute time limit on calls until September 30. That deadline was then extended to March 31, 2021.
Ahead of tomorrow, Google is again “continuing” the free Gmail version of Meet until June 30. With this change, there should be no disruption to how consumers video call with Google products. The last extended time period was aimed at the holiday season, and this one takes users into the summer.
More about Google Meet:
- Google Meet tile view comes to mobile, starting on iOS with 48-person iPad layout [Update]
- Meet breakout rooms can now be set up before calls using Calendar
- Google adds Global Dialing subscription for Workspace customers
- Meet adding emoji reactions, low bandwidth improvements
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
