Engadget: Microsoft Teams goes beyond screen sharing for real-time collaboration. “What’s cooler than just sharing your screen with colleagues? Sharing live projects that everyone can edit at the same time. That’s at the heart of Microsoft’s new Live Share feature, which make it easier for Teams apps to enable real-time collaboration.”
Fast Company: Bye, Zoom: This smart new app is the future of online meetings. “Like most people these days, I participate in more than my share of online meetings. And aside from the occasional internal grumbling, I usually don’t give much thought to the way they work or what could make them more effective. But then I ran into a thoughtful new tool called Switchboard. It completely reimagines the way you interact and work with other people online.”
Popular Science: Slack’s new video tool is @here—and you might already be able to use it. “Video updates and cross-company digital chats in the place of meetings are part of the vision Slack has for the future of hybrid working. The messaging platform announced these new features, among others, on Tuesday at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference.”
ZDNet: Microsoft Teams just got new breakout room controls and better search. “The Microsoft Teams collaboration platform will soon gain improved AI-powered text-based search and more controls for presenters when using Teams Breakout Rooms.”
BNN Bloomberg: Google revamps workspace to rival Microsoft, embrace remote work. “Google revealed a raft of updates to its Workspace productivity suite, including new features for free users, a paid plan for entrepreneurs and fresh capabilities for its Meet videoconferencing system in an effort to better compete with Microsoft Corp.’s products.”
The Register: Google gives Gmail’s collab chops a good buffing to make it the ‘home for work’ while we’re working from home . “Google is to shovel yet more bells and whistles into its Gmail client in an effort to demonstrate its collaborative chops in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Javier Soltero, who skipped away from the doomed Cortana business at Microsoft in 2018 and is now veep of G Suite, talked up the integrated workspace, which combines Gmail, Chat and Meet.”
ZDNet: Slack rolls out new tools, certification program for administrators. “Slack is rolling out another set of tools that aim to improve the experience for administrators. The workplace collaboration player said the new tools will help Slack admins better understand and optimize Slack engagement, and more efficiently manage how their organization uses Slack.”
ProPublica: Making Collaborative Data Projects Easier: Our New Tool, Collaborate, Is Here. “Collaborations are a major part of ProPublica’s approach to journalism, and in the past few years we’ve run several large-scale collaborative projects, including Electionland and Documenting Hate. Along the way, we’ve created software to manage and share the large pools of data used by our hundreds of newsrooms partners. As part of a Google News Initiative grant this year, we’ve beefed up that software and made it open source so that anybody can use it.”
TechAcute: New Work: Setting up an Internal-Only Instagram Account for Your Teams. “Instagram is incredibly successful and popular amongst all kind of demographics. It goes without saying that Instagram should be part of every organization’s social media portfolio for public communication and marketing, but what about internal comms? And what about clubs? NPOs? All the people out there that form teams and independent groups. This is not only interesting for companies.” What an interesting idea.
eWeek: Changes Coming to Slack Include Speedier Search, Help for Admins. “At its Frontiers conference here on Sept. 6, Slack detailed improvements coming to its core messaging platform and how it’s being used by a variety of companies to improve collaboration within internal groups as well as external partners.”
Neowin: Microsoft Teams announces a slew of back to school improvements. “The back-to-school season is rapidly approaching, and Microsoft is gearing up its education tools for the upcoming school year. The company today announced a ton of improvements that have already arrived or are coming soon to Microsoft Teams for Education.”
CBR: “Workplace by Facebook” Rolls Out Raft of New Features. “Workplace by Facebook has had an upgrade, with a range of new features including the ability to find co-workers faster via a more sophisticated search function, greater control for workplace system admins, and enhanced personal fields. The new features, announced late last week, come as the company continues to promote the business collaboration app, which it launched in 2016 as a rival to established enterprise software from companies like Microsoft, and newer collaboration-based platforms like Slack.”
BetaNews: Google’s Slack alternative Hangouts Chat exits beta. “Hangouts Chat competes directly with the likes of Slack and Microsoft Teams, allowing for easier workplace communication and collaboration. The service can be used on the web, and there are Windows, macOS, iOS and Android apps available. Google is emphasizing not only how it integrates with other Google products, but also support for bots.”
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