From Zoom to Blue Jeans: Five apps to help us survive Covid-19 – The Wall Street Journal

Before Covid-19 fear locked the world down, the word Zoom barely registered on my radar. But as we head deeper into the lockdown, Zoom has become one of the go-to apps for many work colleagues, friends and family. I've attended two funerals in the past month, via Zoom – one in New Zealand where my 48-year-old South African cousin was hit by a car while out on his daily exercise; another in the United States, paying my last respects to an old school friend who died an agonisingly slow death in a hospice in the town where she worked as a psychologist. These are funerals I would not have been able to attend – because of the costs associated with long-distance travel. But Covid-19 contagion sparked a rethink from the religious community on how to facilitate final farewells in an era of social distancing, and in so doing have opened services beyond those in close proximity. Another app that has become a significant feature in my family is Microsoft Teams, which is the site of my 13-year-old son's daily real-time virtual classroom and my husband's regular work team meetings. The Wall Street Journal highlights Zoom and points to four other apps that could be changing the way we interact forever. The news organisation cautions that, just as smartphones changed the way we socialise, the conferencing-type apps we get used to in this weird Covid-19 world could transform our interaction patterns forever. – Jackie Cameron

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