(Monday, August 31, 2020) While SmallBusiness.com does not report stock market news, today’s second-quarter earnings of the videoconferencing company, Zoom, is as much a small business culture story (for how it has changed many small businesses during the past six months) as it is a business one.

The pandemic has transformed every kind of small business — buyers, sellers, virtual-webinar-attendees, you name it — into Zoom users.

This afternoon, the company reported revenue for the quarter was $663.5 million, up 355% year-over-year. The company made as much money in May, June and July as it did in all of 2019, beating even the high anticipation of Wall Street.

It is hard to imagine how much work-oriented teleconferencing could have taken place — including small business — without Zoom.

Indeed, a recent outage of some of Zoom’s conferences demonstrated the vulnerabilities of virtual classes and office meetings during the age of the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysts and reporters like Minnesota Public Radio’s Market Place’s Meghan McCarty Carino are asking if Zoom’s phenomenal success can continue.

Will Zoom Be a Sprint, or a Marathon?

While low-cost and easy to use teleconferencing has transformed it into a must-have business tool for the present, it’s not guaranteed that Zoom will be the long term winner.

While it receives high marks for its ease of use, there are plenty of examples — including products from Google and Apple and Facebook — that short term success doesn’t always lead to longterm market domination.

However, in the short term, small business owners who need a simple teleconferencing solution will likely keep Zoom zooming.