Zoom Video Communications Inc. said today it’s planning to enable users to integrate third-party applications within its video collaboration platform by the end of the year.

The new “Zapps” are applications that can be used directly within Zoom, thereby eliminating the need to switch among multiple apps during meetings. The idea is to boost productivity and create more engaging experiences by navigating through various apps from within the Zoom interface.

Zoom announced Zapps alongside the public beta test launch of a new events platform and marketplace it calls OnZoom, which enables paid Zoom users to create, host and make money from events on its video platform.

In some ways, though, the Zapps illustrate how the company aims to make itself indispensable across many online activities. Zoom Project Lead Ross Mayfield showed in a press briefing how Dropbox Inc. created a Zapp within the Zoom interface to share documents quickly with meeting participants. Other examples include creating a poll using the Slido Zapp, or performing status updates on team projects with the Asana Zapp.

Notably, Zapps are different from the existing apps in the Zoom Marketplace, which bring Zoom into other applications or create applications that use Zoom to communicate, Mayfield said.

“This is apps in Zoom for the very first time,” he said. “I expect a lot of customers will be using Zapps to integrate their existing workflows into Zoom.”

Mayfield explained that Zapps are a kind of app store where users need it most, whether it’s in a Zoom meeting, chat, webinar, phone call or even within a contacts directory. Users can bring their most important apps directly into the Zoom experience, enabling a free flow of information before, during and after meetings, he said.

“This will truly transform the meeting experience,” Mayfield said. “This is about the full meeting workflow.”

When the first Zapps arrive later this year, users will be able to search the Zapp store and choose which approved applications they want to add to their Zoom accounts. Those apps will then be made accessible via Zoom’s full portfolio of collaboration tools, Mayfield said.

Then, from within any meeting, chat, webinar or phone call, users will be able to screen share each Zapp with a single click, or send a Zapp to each participant to aid real-time collaboration. In addition, users will be able to discover and open up needed apps by searching the Zapp database from within any meeting.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said this was an encouraging move from Zoom because enterprises are always searching for ways to make their employees more productive in these challenging times.

“Context switching is one of the biggest productivity killers, so Zoom’s attempt to bring more context int collaboration is helpful and has potential,” Mueller said.

Zoom announced 35 launch partners that are building Zapps for its platform: Asana, Atlassian, Box, Cameo, Chorus, Coda, Coursera, Docket, Dot Collector, Dropbox, Gong, Hubspot, Kahoot, Kaltura, LoomieLive, LucidSpark, Miro, Mural, PagerDuty, Pitch, Remix Labs, Rev, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Slido, Superhuman, SurveyMonkey, Thrive Global, Unsplash, Woven, Wrike, WW and Zendesk.

Developers are invited to join the party too and can submit their Zapps to Zoom for testing, approval, hosting and publishing.

As for OnZoom, it appears to be more consumer-focused at present, with the company giving examples of paid events such as concerts, yoga classes, stand-up comedy performances and music lessons. “OnZoom is an event marketplace for users to create events,” said Wei Li, head of platform and AI at Zoom. “It allows businesses to easily monetize their events.”

With OnZoom, businesses and entrepreneurs will be able to schedule, host and make money from either onetime events or a series of events with room for up to 100 or 1,000 attendees based on the user’s Zoom Meeting license. Attendees simply purchase tickets for the events they wish to attend, while the platform also provides discovery features, so that Zoom users can find OnZoom events based on their interests. At the end of an event, attendees will be able to leave a rating and feedback on their experience.

One of OnZoom’s launch partners is WW International Inc., formerly Weight Watchers International, Inc., which is using the platform to offer paid virtual workshops on wellness and weight loss.

“We are always looking for new ways to make wellness more accessible,” said WW Chief Brand Officer Gail Tifford. “With so many people spending time on Zoom, we saw an opportunity to not only collaborate with a like-minded brand but to bring our behavior-change expertise to the forefront and inspire people around the world to live healthier, happier lives.”

Li said Zoom isn’t taking a cut of proceeds from OnZoom during the beta period but hinted it might be possible later.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Image: Zoom