Before the coronavirus pandemic shut down most of D.C., Robert Goodman attended between two and three networking events a month. As the owner of Technical Interviewers, a District-based company that recruits software developers for companies with job openings, Goodman has met many of his clients in what now seems like the old-fashioned way.

“Most of my clients are small-business owners, startup owners, that sort of thing,” he says. “They tend to frequent these events a lot, so it’s a good source of business.”

But with in-person events postponed or canceled to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the nation’s capital—long-reputed for its professionally driven networking culture—Goodman finds himself among various locals who are attending virtual networking events as an alternative. He’s already been to two, which were held via Zoom and ranged in size from five to 10 people.

Neither event was “Zoombombed” (disrupted by unwanted virtual guests), although Goodman says there were other points of awkwardness given the new format. “I’ve seen a lot of cats and dogs running around in people’s backgrounds,” he says, laughing. He adds that, so far, the virtual mixers haven’t been as productive as traditional ones, in part because they’ve followed a “top-down” structure: The organizers posed questions about how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting the attendees (“how are you managing working at home?”), who then chimed in one by one.

This means people spend less time getting to know each other, says Goodman, and have a harder time making connections than if they were interacting at a physical venue, like a bar. “You know how it goes at a real in-person networking event,” he explains. “You kind of stroll around, people are talking about what they do, people join in and go back and forth, and that kind of give-and-take just doesn’t seem to be happening with the events that I’ve been to.”

Still, others say virtual events have their advantages. Abigail Casas is a communications specialist at FedWriters, a Fairfax, Va.-based company that provides writing and communications services to government and commercial clients. She says that while she typically attended in-person networking events about once a month before the pandemic, doing so often felt like a hassle.

“I’m not super extroverted,” says Casas. “I don’t have a motor vehicle, so for me to get places, it’s a bus to the Metro, the Metro to a block, and then you have to walk a couple more blocks, and it’s like, ‘How much do I really want to go to this?’”

Now, all she has to do is log into virtual meetings. She’s participated in events focused on digital design and food photography andsays virtual networking feels more casual than the body-to-body kind. Besides, continues Casas, it’s not a huge deal if you’re running a few minutes late to an event where people don’t see you rush into a room.

For meeting organizers, online networking also has its pros and cons. Michael Marra, the CEO of tech company Entre, which puts together networking events for entrepreneurs nationwide, says his firm began moving its programming online in early March, ahead of many of the eventual shutdowns.

Entre uses teleconferencing software such as Crowdcast and Hopin and is aiming to host smooth gatherings. “We try to still make the experience as much like a real event as possible,” says Marra. That includes bringing on guest speakers and allowing participants to network for as much as two hours per event.

And virtual speed dating, of a sort: Hopin can randomly pair attendees for video chats that last a few minutes each. Entre had been planning to up its digital offerings since before the COVID-19 crisis, according to Marra, and had procured much of the necessary software. “This kind of just forced us to do [virtual events],” he says. The company just submitted their own app to Apple’s App Store for approval last week.

There are certain challenges that come with meeting virtually, like unstable internet connections and faulty audio and video feeds. But Marra says hosting online events is easier in some respects: There’s no need to provide refreshments or check in dozens of participants at the front door. “We want to make sure we’re setting ourselves up for the long term, because we think that this is gonna last for a while,” he adds.

For her part, Casas hopes that even after local officials relax coronavirus-related restrictions—whenever that is—alternative programming will become part of the norm. “People who could never go out more, for whatever reason, they have more options now,” she says. “So hopefully these new channels that we’ve built, they aren’t neglected and just littered away.”