Meeting Links Will Replace Phone Numbers & Email
One “Ring” to Rule Them All
My calendar is full of meeting links. To reach a new person or company, I click on a scheduling link. But these links are doing a small fraction of what they are capable of.
A link can do everything a phone number or email address can do, using popular tools like Twilio and SendGrid. This article explains why meeting links will replace phone numbers and email addresses — and sooner than you think.
Meeting Links Can Do Phone Calls
If you’ve ever clicked a meeting link from a WebRTC-based service like join.me or bluejeans, you’ve seen the magic happen.
Your browser fires up a voice and video connection to the other user’s computer or phone — no download, no install, no password needed. WebRTC is supported by almost everybody.
So I click the meeting link, the voice stream is connected from my device, and you’re not in the meeting. Then I notice the “Call Now” button on the page.
Clicking “call now” places an outbound phone call to you, using Twilio. Your mobile phone rings, just like any other phone call, and you pick it up. I just called you from the web, without needing your phone number.
But wait, there’s more!
Meeting Links Can Forward Messages
A meeting link can include a chat window. I can type in a message, and it’s forwarded to you by text message using Twilio. Or it’s forwarded to you by email using SendGrid. Twilio can even forward to WhatsApp.
Now we have a meeting link where I can send you a text message or an email, without needing your phone number or email address.
I can send an instant message that arrives on your preferred messaging tool (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Messenger, etc) without needing to be on the same App as you.
Meeting Links Don’t Have to Expire
The extra buttons for “Call” or “Message” on your meeting link aren’t useful during the meeting. They’re useful before and after the meeting.
I can put that meeting link under your name in my Contacts, and that’s where I can call you, text you, or send a follow-up email after the meeting. And next time we have a video meeting, we can use the same link. Isn’t that easier?
That’s why meeting links shouldn’t expire. If I give 100 different meeting links out to 100 people, each person now has a permanent “address” where they can call or message me.
Now Its a Conversation Address
Now we have a meeting link that doesn’t expire, and lets either person call or message the other person anytime — without needing their phone number, email address, or instant messenger handle.
It’s not a meeting link anymore. It’s a URL for the conversation between two people. Instead of giving out a phone number or email address when you meet someone, you will give them a link.
To end the conversation, you just cancel that person’s link. They never had your phone number or email address. That’s how you protect your privacy.
Your Calendar Link Can Do More
Most of the meeting links I use today came from a calendar link service like Calendly, Acuity Scheduling or Microsoft Bookings.
They all work the same way — you visit a permanent URL and give your name and some other details. Then you get a unique meeting link for your conversation with the other person.
This is the same way people will get their new “Meeting Link” that includes phone, text and email. You go from a public link that everyone sees on your website, to a private link for a 1–to-1 conversation.
We Have the Architecture To Do More
In this new decade, contact information is rapidly moving away from phone and email to scheduling links and meeting links. But the makers of those links are only seeing a small part of the puzzle.
It’s as if the inventors of the steam engine never thought to put it on wheels and make it go somewhere.
Calendly just raised $350 million at a valuation of $3 billion. Zoom has been valued at $57 billion. The only way to justify these kinds of lofty valuations is to make scheduling links and meeting links do a lot more than they do today. The investors will demand it.
The humans of 2021 are already using scheduling links and contact links as contact info. The behavior change — that’s the hard part — has already happened. Now it’s time to expand what meeting links and scheduling links can do.
Meeting Links will replace phone numbers and email, and sooner than you think.
