-Welcome to the 2020 Chatty Awards,
where we recognize the very best in video conferencing apps.
-We are your hosts, your judges, and your camera people
for this evening.
I'm Heather -- -I'm --
Oh, I'm sorry. -No, you got it. Okay.
I -- I'm Heather Kelly.
-And I'm Geoffrey Fowler.
This has been a huge pandemic for group video chat,
with a star turn by Zoom
and a late-breaking entry from Google Meet
and Facebook Rooms.
-We'll award Chatties in a half-dozen technical categories,
like Best Special Effects and Best Privacy,
all leading up to the night's most coveted award,
Best All-Around Video Chatting App.
-And now, if everybody could please mute,
let's hand out some Chatties.
And our first category is Best Picture Quality.
This is the one that matters when you want to look your best
no matter what.
And the Chatty goes to..
Skype.
This veteran app surprised us,
coming back from near retirement
with stable, clear video and audio
that we couldn't get consistently from others.
-Up next, it's Best Special Effects,
because who doesn't want to make their 800th call of the day
a little more special?
And the Chatty goes to --
It's Facebook Rooms.
Facebook's new arrival, Rooms, has so many virtual backgrounds
and funny masks,
you'll hardly need to look at anybody else's face.
You'll be too busy playing with your own.
But beware -- The effects are only available
on Facebook's mobile apps.
-Our next category should matter
to anybody who's doing business online
or who has kids --
Best Privacy and Security.
And the Chatty goes to
Apple FaceTime.
It's one of the few video conference apps
that's truly end-to-end encrypted,
meaning nobody else can listen in.
And there's no way for randos to bomb the conversation.
Too bad it's only available if everyone on the call
uses Apple products, too.
-And our next category, it's all about fun --
Best Party App.
And the Chatty goes to
Houseparty.
Houseparty is the place to check in for trivia night
and for randomly popping in and out of the conversation.
You can even watch celebrities together.
Just don't forget to lock your room,
or you might have a surprise guest.
-Now, let's pause for a minute
to remember those we've left behind this year.
Cisco Webex.
We used you for two days at work, and then we moved on.
-Google Hangouts.
Like Google+ and Allo before it,
Hangouts is being put to sleep.
Google Meet will replace it.
Sadly, your video quality still hasn't improved.
-And now, the moment we've all been waiting for --
Best Video Chat App of the Year.
-And the Chatty goes to --
[gasps] It's Zoom! It's Zoom!
-Zoom has been synonymous with video chatting
ever since we first started working and socializing
from home.
But then security researchers
found all sorts of problems,
and hackers started bombing conversations.
-Since then, it's made some important changes
to its privacy defaults
and is on its way to being end-to-end encrypted, too.
But what really sold us is that Zoom
is the easiest app to get a wide range of people all in the same place
and all looking and sounding pretty good, too.
-Well, that's all, folks. See you in the next pandemic.
-Hopefully by then, we'll be handing out a Chatty
for Best Hologram.
♪♪