Now that is one useful feature and one whose’ lack I have personally had occasion to lament, since it required me to open up third party integrations. Slack is bringing in a brand new feature that will allow users to share their screens with each other. The feature is already widely available on different platforms like Skype. So Slack is more playing catch rather than re-inventing the wheel here.
We first expected the feature to surface with Slack’s acquisition of Screenhero. This as the name implied, was a startup which supported enterprise screen share. The company was acquired in a cash-and-stock deal and for reasons we can not fathom, it took Slack over 2 years to integrate Screenhero’s most crucial offering into its own service.
Interestingly, the feature could also be accessed using the slew of integrations (including Skype and Hangouts) that Google offers. With this, Slack could be hoping to get users on the native services a opposed to having to fire up external integrations.
Using the new feature is pretty simple and involves the following steps:
- Start a video call with the person with whom you want to share screens with.
- Once you are there, find and click the sceenshare button to start streaming.
- The feature works just as well even when you are using several screens. You can easily choose which one you want to share with the person at the other end of the call.
- Your webcam will turn off during this duration and Slack notification will also not appear during this particular period.
The feature will start rolling out over both Mac and Windows over the next few days. Just make sure you have the latest version of the app installed on your system.
