Generic word for videoconferencing, etc.

January 25, 2020 7:55 PM

What is the general word for technology solutions that let people attend meetings remotely, e.g., videoconferencing today, and who-knows-what tomorrow, VR or something. Technology solutions is not really what I'm looking for.
posted by HotToddy to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

Telepresence.
posted by fritley at 8:00 PM on January 25, 2020 [8 favorites]

Colloquially I hear “remote meeting” a fair amount, along with the old-school “teleconference” being applied to video calls etc.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 8:01 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: To clarify, I'm looking for the word for the various things that allow you to have a remote meeting, like Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc., but something that will stand the test of time. Not "videoconferencing technology" because maybe we won't even be using videoconferencing in a few years.
posted by HotToddy at 8:13 PM on January 25, 2020

Honestly, I don't think anyone has come up with a word yet. If I were writing an article about it, I'd refer to the concept as "remote meeting technology" or "virtual meeting technology." But as more and more meetings are held remotely, I think "virtual" will eventually sound old fashioned.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 8:19 PM on January 25, 2020

"teleconferencing"
posted by XMLicious at 8:49 PM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Teleconferencing technology.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:52 PM on January 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Last week, a friend of mine from the dawn of time in tech terms asked who still called video conferencing/telepresence/etc a ‘bridge’, and it was nearly everybody.

I think it’s lasted b/c it describes the function, literally bridging the distance between the participants, without reference to the specific mechanism.
posted by Kreiger at 8:59 PM on January 25, 2020 [4 favorites]

I work with people who describe this as "calling in" or "dialing in" to a meeting, and generally use the technology brand as as the noun, ie "add Skype/WebEx to a meeting." Sometimes they say something like "call-in details" even if screen-sharing by the presenter is assumed. If a video conference with real-time people faces is required, people say video conference. But most often I just hear "meeting" and the connectivity details are secondary and not always specified.
posted by a moisturizing whip at 10:18 PM on January 25, 2020

I regularly see the words “conferencing,” and “conferencing technology” used where I work. It would sound odd if we said “teleconferencing” internally, since all meetings have the potential to accept remote attendees, and it’s assumed. Still, it does call into question the difference between a conference and a meeting. We do also use the term “remote meeting technology,” but what would probably stand the test of time longest is “meeting technology.”

Source: I do research on this topic for my job and design UI for conferencing software.
posted by oxisos at 10:44 PM on January 25, 2020

At the tech company where I work people tend to abbreviate it to “VC” in conversation. We have two systems we use and whatever other systems our collaborators from outside use, so it’s the generic term.
posted by migurski at 11:33 PM on January 25, 2020

The phrase that comes naturally to me is remote conferencing technologies. But I am nowhere near being in the business.
posted by bluebird at 1:56 AM on January 26, 2020

VTC/bridge/"damnit [software/hardware/room AV], why you suck so much?"
posted by Alterscape at 4:19 AM on January 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

We call it ‘remote meeting’, ‘Skype call’ or ‘Skype’ in my organisation. In general we don’t use the ‘video’ options but use it as Conf call with the option to go through meeting materials on screen. In most of my remote meetings with clients or when we join their internal meetings people don’t bother with the ‘video’ part either. Video is used so rarely that I was fascinated by a survey from our IT/technology folks recently where they were going on about what would help us to have more video calls ‘to feel connected’ - I am perfectly happy with my meeting formats. Getting more connected by video technology is not even in my top 20 things I’d like the technology folks to fix.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:41 AM on January 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

We also call it a "remote meeting" as at my org we've been playing hot-potato with the specific tech we use. In the last year we've used Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack and Zoom. We've probably settled on Zoom and we're noticing that sneak into the conversation ("Hey, can you setup a Zoom for tomorrow?") but we also often shorten it to simply "remote", as in "hey - can you make tomorrow's planning meeting remote? i'll be out of town."
posted by cgg at 8:18 AM on January 26, 2020

Here at the ol’ fruit company, we either call it “AVCN” or Jabber/WebEx, depending on if we fell like using Cisco’s brand names I guess.
posted by sideshow at 3:10 PM on January 26, 2020

Videocall.
posted by my-username at 4:46 PM on February 3, 2020