Close your eyes for one second and suddenly it’s October. At this point, office-oriented businesses around the country have either decided they’re working remote for the long haul, bringing people back into the office, or something in between. Either way, businesses that adopted new tools to enhance their communication abilities likely aren’t abandoning their early-pandemic saviors. Slack, Zoom, and other similar applications deserve all the praise.
Today we take a look at some of the key changes you should expect to see to several of the workplace communication tools that have kept you and your team afloat during the pandemic.
Google is doing it again. Just as we were all starting to get familiar with the latest names belonging to the various offerings the company has for workplace efficiency, Google is hitting the “rebrand” button just the latest time in what feels like a short while.
The company announced it will begin transitioning users from Google Hangouts to Google Chat, with the latter previously only available to those who paid for Google Workspace (formerly known as G Suite). For those wondering, that’s not the same thing as Google Meet (formerly known as Google Hangouts Meet), which is also offered via Workspace.
Credit: Google
Chat will be offered for free as both part of Gmail and a standalone app, and is said to include many of the same features users have enjoyed on Hangouts.
Google says it will assist users in migrating their Hangouts conversations and contacts over to Chat sometime in the first half of 2021. Reasons to make the shift now include increased abilities for planning and collaboration.
The shift away from Hangouts also means that Google Voice enthusiasts may need to find a new home. Hangouts will end support for Voice sometime early next year, meaning it may require users to shift toward the dedicated Voice app for texts and calls. Group video calls will also begin using Meet in November.
To recap: About half a dozen apps that more or less do the same thing, but also do different things, but will at some point be migrated all onto one app, all before becoming several apps again.
Zoom
It’s been quite the year for Zoom. Going from a relatively unassuming video conferencing platform to start the year, Zoom became a household name during the pandemic era as people shifted from office cubicles to desks at home. That victory tour only lasted so long, later marred by a spotlight on critical holes in their security infrastructure. Most of those issues have since been resolved, allowing us to focus on the additions the company is now making.
The first: End-to-end encryption. After a handful of setbacks that prevented the company from meeting its own launch deadline of July, Zoom announced this week that it will finally begin offering E2EE this week. The company states that all users (both free and paid) can host encrypted meetings including up to 200 participants. The initial rollout will serve as a “technical preview” where users will need to enable E2EE on a per-meeting basis.
Zoom is also introducing the ability to integrate third-party apps into its platform. Naturally, the feature is known as “Zapps.” This will essentially enable users to integrate other apps into Zoom’s existing workflow to make it easier to access app-specific information during video calls. Zoom says it will look to add about 35 Zapps partners by the end of the year, including Atlassian, Dropbox, and Slack.
Slack
Meanwhile, the folks over at Slack are busy making shoes.
No, really.
The workplace messaging platform is — for reasons completely unknown — collaborating with shoemaker Cole Haan to develop a pair of limited-edition sneakers: Slack Generation ZERØGrand (option+shift+O on macOS for those wondering). We’re not entirely sure who these are for, but I suppose we can raise a glass for those two or three people who sit in the middle of the venn diagram between “sneakerheads” and “messaging software aficionados.” They’ve waited long enough.
(As an aside, props to Cole Haan for catering to people with feet both tiny and massive; you don’t often see options range in size from 4 to 15 on most retailers).
Let’s give them a little credit here, though — these could have looked much worse. But at $120, you may want to check out what sort of sneakers Webex and Michael Kors are putting out first.
Those who really want to show their support for the platform can complete the look with a pair of Slack socks or a Slack tee.
