I have a bit of a negative answer, in the sense that I don’t know what to recommend. A lot of people in my life (colleagues, friends, family) want to stay in touch (and I with them), but each person seems to have their own preferences about software, or at least sufficiently many subgroups of them do that no single tool will suffice. At this point I honestly think that it’s not so much the quality of the tool, but more who are already using it, which determines which software is best. If you and your friends all used to meet on Minecraft every Tuesday, then that is probably the ideal way to keep doing things.
As of yet I’m using Skype, WhatsApp (+WhatsApp Web), personal email, two work emails, two Discord clients (one in browser, one as an app, with separate accounts), my phone, two Slack workspaces, weekly Zoom group meetings, Google Talk, MS Teams and the occasional Jitsi call. This is crazy, but all of them are sufficiently low traffic that I don’t really mind.
All of them work fine, I do have mild personal preferences (for Slack, Discord and my phone over all the others) but like I said above it’s far more relevant to stay in touch at all than to do it with the right tool.
Nod. I definitely agree “keep in contact” is the main thing and if people are arguing over the details, probably better to roll with what a given person is comfortable with.
This question was oriented around groups of people where everyone agrees that that it’s worth some experimentation and investment in a good longterm product, or who don’t yet have a solid default. (For example, I’ve found that video-call-quality matters a lot more now that I’m doing them for hours at a time on a regular basis, whereas before I’d have been happy to grab a google hangout or slack or whatever for the occasional 45 minute call)
I have a bit of a negative answer, in the sense that I don’t know what to recommend. A lot of people in my life (colleagues, friends, family) want to stay in touch (and I with them), but each person seems to have their own preferences about software, or at least sufficiently many subgroups of them do that no single tool will suffice. At this point I honestly think that it’s not so much the quality of the tool, but more who are already using it, which determines which software is best. If you and your friends all used to meet on Minecraft every Tuesday, then that is probably the ideal way to keep doing things.
As of yet I’m using Skype, WhatsApp (+WhatsApp Web), personal email, two work emails, two Discord clients (one in browser, one as an app, with separate accounts), my phone, two Slack workspaces, weekly Zoom group meetings, Google Talk, MS Teams and the occasional Jitsi call. This is crazy, but all of them are sufficiently low traffic that I don’t really mind.
All of them work fine, I do have mild personal preferences (for Slack, Discord and my phone over all the others) but like I said above it’s far more relevant to stay in touch at all than to do it with the right tool.
Nod. I definitely agree “keep in contact” is the main thing and if people are arguing over the details, probably better to roll with what a given person is comfortable with.
This question was oriented around groups of people where everyone agrees that that it’s worth some experimentation and investment in a good longterm product, or who don’t yet have a solid default. (For example, I’ve found that video-call-quality matters a lot more now that I’m doing them for hours at a time on a regular basis, whereas before I’d have been happy to grab a google hangout or slack or whatever for the occasional 45 minute call)