Tencent’s answer to Zoom can keep you looking airbrushed for coworkers
Tencent’s VooV isn’t as feature-rich as Zoom, but its beauty filter is heavy on lightening skin tones
As cities across the globe go into lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Zoom has emerged as a new video-calling star. The service has proven useful for connecting schools, workplaces and friends.
But now Zoom is facing more competition. Chinese tech giant Tencent is jumping into the ring with its own video conferencing service with an equally short but not quite as snappy name: It’s called VooV.
VooV is the international version of Tencent Meeting. The service launched last Friday and is available in more than 100 countries and regions, according to the company.
The name isn’t the only indication that VooV is keen on taking on Zoom. The platform also has many of the same features that helped make US-based Zoom the go-to video conferencing app for millions of remote workers. It has the same simple design and makes joining conference calls as hassle-free as entering an ID number.
Chinese smartphones and photo filtering apps have long attracted attention for offering a specific type of aesthetic in their filters: Large eyes, pointy chins and skin whitening. Tencent is applying that same recipe to VooV to make sure that we can all look extra white during our most important conference calls.
