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| Slack introduces Huddles audio service |
Slack introduced a new Huddles feature, a voice call that you and your co-workers can turn on and off at work.
The crowd feature was born during a pandemic and is designed to replace casual conversations between you and your office colleagues.
If you've used Discord before, Huddles are very similar, you can join or leave an ongoing call at any time.
Slack focuses on audio and uses messaging instead of video. But there is a screen sharing function that makes it easier for team members to organize spontaneous meetings.
This function allows two to three minutes of conversation. Saving time and spontaneity are important components of gatherings.
These voice calls can be made in any channel or private message, including corporate communications.
The audio experience is designed so that you don't have to send out invites, links, or contact numbers. Anyone in the channel or DM group is free to join.
Powered by Slack's partnership with Amazon, Huddles also offers fast and accurate live demos on AWS.
The little reunion is also part of Slack's larger effort to address some of the collaboration issues when people start back in the office.
Slack will also be rolling out audio, video, and screen recording in the coming months.
The idea is that people can record their thoughts and send them to a channel. This is useful for large teams that work across multiple time zones or that don't need daily meetings.
These logs that people share also contain soft, searchable text and tools to speed up or slow down reading.
Slack starts up the voice calling feature
Microsoft is Slack's biggest competitor and the features it offers are very different from the new features in Huddle.
Microsoft is working hard to improve Microsoft Teams for communications so that it works correctly when some employees are remote while others are in the office.
When some people in the channel join the messenger, those who don't want to join can continue the chat by watching the chat window.
Group chat team
Slack's goal has always been to make the millions of people who depend on it daily love its products, not the way Microsoft and Google combine services.
Huddles is an example of the Slack method. But the company needs a lot of similar functionality for pooling and deep integration with Salesforce to prevent Microsoft and Google from invading the digital workplace.