Zoom, the embattled video conferencing app, has admitted to having misreported numbers around daily active users. In a blog post (archived version) that the company had penned earlier this month (and covered by us here), Zoom had claimed to have reached “300 million” daily active “users”. However, the company has since deleted that line, and rephrased it to 300 million active “participants”.
Now there is a big difference between a “user” and a “participant”. If you for example, participated in 6-7 Zoom meetings in a day, you will be counted as a “participant” every time. However, you will still be counted as “1” user.
In a statement issued to The Verge, Zoom admitted to the “error” on its part. “In a blog post on April 22, we unintentionally referred to these participants as “users” and “people.” When we realized this error, we adjusted the wording to “participants.” This was a genuine oversight on our part.”, the company said.
A more credible metric to measure is obviously user, since that goes on to show the actual level of engagement that a particular product/service has. But a “participant” driven metric is easier to report and often tends to be misleading. Most video conferencing tools however, seem to be reporting participant metrics (barring Google Meet and MS Teams, who are reporting user numbers as well).
Zoom still continues to not report user counts, even though it has had an impressive growth in participants count.
Editor’s Note: We have edited our previous Zoom story, based on the latest clarification issued by Zoom on number of users.
