[technology taskforce] Techcrunch: Slack announces it’s building voice and video chat

[Dev Anand Teelucksingh]

Hello, Chris, indeed perhaps something can be shown at the Marrakech
TTF session on Monday. :-)

Re: Skype, Skype calls aren't typically used for group calls but are
often used for At-Large members to voice chat one on one. As a FYI,
the Skype Translation features now built in for one on one chat and
video calls are a huge plus. Had a conversation with a LACRALO
colleague in Latin America and the Skype translation worked well
between English and Spanish, in spite of the bandwidth challenges.
I suspect Slack voice and video chat would not have this feature.
There is a Slack integration to translate Slack messages
https://github.com/roman01la/slack-traductor

Dev Anand


On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 2:45 PM, Chris Gift <chris.gift at icann.org> wrote:
> Dev
>
> For the use cases you list Slack is far better. So if you guys are using chat a lot then we should definitely trial Slack — but do you used Skype calls for your group chats as well or only texting? If it’s the former we may have to wait for Slack to add voice/video.
>
> I’m more than happy to show everyone how ICANN IT and Product Management staff use Slack for our collaboration.
>
> Chris Gift
>
> ICANN
> M +31.06.2787.6232
> Twitter @cgift
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/2/16, 19:35, "Dev Anand Teelucksingh" <devtee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Thanks Chris. I think the TTF would like to trial discourse.org . I've
>>heard about it before but no direct experience and I see that its
>>feature set is growing after its 3 years of existence.
>>
>>Re: Slack, At-Large uses Skype group chats a LOT. The disadvantages of
>>Skype are that
>>- Skype group chats aren't discoverable outside of those in the Skype
>>group chat (similiar to Slack) - although, Skype now allows persons to
>>join a Skype chat without needing a Skype client.
>>- messages aren't saved. If you switch to a new desktop or mobile
>>device, you lose access to all of your past conversations and chats
>>over the years and the loss of knowledge and history is significant.
>>Slack having a centralised (and searchable!) archive of past messages
>>is much better in that regard.
>>- you can't search across all Skype chats, if you recall there was a
>>URL you posted to someone last year, you have to remember in which
>>Skype chat you saw the URL. And if you've switched to a new Skype
>>logged in account , you've lost access to those conversations.
>>
>>So from those perspectives, using Slack for group chat to replace
>>Skype seems better. It is indeed a challenge to get buyin of any new
>>approach or technology.
>>
>>Dev Anand
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 11:15 AM, Chris Gift <chris.gift at icann.org> wrote:
>>> Slack remains my favorite team collaboration and communications tool it’s fantastic at many things. But I remain skeptical on its applicability to the multistakeholder model for a few reasons.
>>>
>>> First, it’s a synchronous communication model and the community, due to timezones, work schedules, etc., work asynchronously. Second, as most synchronous models, the medium is conducive to short messages, sometimes with attachments and/or links. It’s not good at lengthy, thoughtful discussions. And third, is that it’s not open and transparent. I really have no idea how we could let people inspect the discussions happening within Slack. And as for archiving offline somewhere, again, I have no idea how that would work. Note that they have a robust API we could work with to resolve some of these issues.
>>>
>>> Having said all the above, it is a tool we should continue to keep an eye, and perhaps even experiment with once they get voice and video.
>>>
>>> Of all the tools I’ve looked at over the past few years, the one I remain convinced is a good fit for the ICANN community is discourse.org. It’s a modern replacement for the forum with many features that overlap with listservs. I tried deploying this twice, once with 1Net — remember that??? :) — and once with one of the IANA transition groups. Both times community members resisted and asked us to revert to a standard listerv. Which we of course did.
>>>
>>> Chris Gift
>>> ICANN
>>> M +31.06.2787.6232
>>> Twitter @cgift
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/1/16, 23:43, "ttf-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of Dev Anand Teelucksingh" <ttf-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of devtee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Via www.techcrunch.com/2016/03/01/slack-roadmap/
>>>>
>>>>"Slack laid out its plan to stay ahead of its workplace chat
>>>>competitors today with new products for its 2.3 million daily active
>>>>users, up from 2 million in December. The big changes will center
>>>>around message enhancements, greater Usability, and voice and video
>>>>chat.
>>>>
>>>>That last one is huge. You’ll soon be able to switch directly into a
>>>>voice or video chat inside of Slack. This could strike a heavy blow to
>>>>Skype, Google Hangouts and other multi-media collaboration tools.
>>>>Slack says it will begin testing these features very soon."
>>>>
>>>>Dev Anand
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>ttf mailing list
>>>>ttf at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>>>>https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/ttf