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Slack (software)

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This article is about the software. For company that produces this software, see Slack Technologies.
Slack
Original author(s)Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov[1]
Developer(s)Slack Technologies
Initial releaseAugust 2013; 11 years ago (2013-08)[2]
Operating systemWindows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android, Windows Phone[3]
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCollaborative software[4]
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.slack.com

Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool co-founded by Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov.[1] Slack began as an internal tool used by their company, Tiny Speck, in the development of Glitch, a now defunct online game.[6][7]

History

Slack was launched in August 2013.[8]

In January 2015, Slack announced the acquisition of Screenhero, which will be integrated into the Slack software to add voice, video, and screen sharing.[9]

In March 2015, Slack announced that it was hacked over the course of four days in February 2015, and that some number of users’ data was compromised. That data included email addresses, usernames, encrypted passwords, and, in some cases, phone numbers and Skype IDs that users had associated with their accounts. In response, Slack added two-factor authentication to their service.[10]

Features

While no longer using an IRC backend, Slack offers a lot of IRC-like features: persistent chat rooms (channels) organized by topic, as well as private groups and direct messaging (again, historically based on IRC).[7] All content inside Slack is searchable, including files, conversations, and people. Slack integrates with a large number of third-party services and supports community-built integrations.[11] Major integrations include services such as Google Drive, Trello, Dropbox, Heroku, Crashlytics, GitHub, Runscope and Zendesk.[12][13] In December 2015, Slack announced their app directory consisting of over 150 integrations that users can install.[14] Users can add emoji buttons to their messages, which other users can then click on to express their reactions to messages.[15]

Teams

Slack teams allow communities, groups, or teams to join through a specific URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner. Although Slack was meant for organizational communication, it has been slowly turning into a community platform, a function for which users had previously used message boards or social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn groups.[16] Many of these communities are categorized by topics which a group of people may be interested in discussing.

Business model

Slack advertises itself as a freemium product available for an unlimited number of users, but it was reported that the limit is actually 8,462 users per channel. Users can upgrade to various paid versions to gain access to larger channels, or additional features.[17]

Funding

The company originally raised nearly $43 million in April 2014.[18] In October 2014, the company raised $120 million in venture capital with a $1.2 billion valuation led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures. Earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership also participated in this round.[19]

In March 2015, Slack signed a deal with investors to raise up to $160 million in a funding round that values the company at $2.76 billion. New investors include Institutional Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures, Index Ventures and DST Global.[20] In April 2015, the company raised another $160 million.[21]

Platforms

Slack provides mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone (beta),[22] in addition to their web browser client and native desktop clients for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux (beta). Slack is also available for the Apple Watch, allowing users to send direct messages, see mentions, and make simple replies.[23] It was featured on the home screen of the Apple Watch in a promotional video.[24]

Reception

8,000 customers signed up for the service within 24 hours of its launch in August 2013.[8][25] In February 2015, the company wrote that around 10,000 new daily active users were signing up each week, and had more than 135,000 paying customers spread across 60,000 teams.[26][27] By April, those numbers had grown to 200,000 paid subscribers and a total of 750,000 daily active users.[28] In 2015, Slack passed more than a million daily active users.[29][30]

The Financial Times wrote in March 2015 that Slack was the first business technology to have crossed from business into personal use since Microsoft Office and the BlackBerry.[31]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kumparak, Greg. "Slack's Co-Founders Take Home The Crunchie For Founder Of The Year". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 10, 2015.
  2. ^ Zax, David, Flickr Cofounders Launch Slack, An Email Killer, retrieved April 19, 2015
  3. ^ Slack, Slack apps for computers, phones & tablets, retrieved April 19, 2015
  4. ^ "Crunchbase - Slack Technologies". CrunchBase. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  5. ^ "Slack" (XBRL). Crunchbase. November 17, 2015.
  6. ^ Tam, Donna, Flickr founder plans to kill company e-mails with Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  7. ^ a b Thomas, Owen, Die, Email, Die! A Flickr Cofounder Aims To Cut Us All Some Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  8. ^ a b Koetsier, John (August 15, 2013), "Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield's new Slack signed up 8,000 companies in 24 hours", VentureBeat, retrieved January 7, 2016
  9. ^ http://blog.screenhero.com/post/109337923751/screenhero-joins-slack
  10. ^ Greenberg, Andy (March 27, 2015). "Slack Says It Was Hacked, Enables Two-Factor Authentication". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  11. ^ Dowinton, Richard. "Bye Bye HipChat, Hello Slack!". Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  12. ^ Gannes, Liz, Flickr Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield Turns to Workplace Communication Tools With Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  13. ^ Augustine, Ann, Slack Sets New Standard for Team Communication Online, retrieved November 27, 2013
  14. ^ "Slack launches an app store and an $80 million fund to invest in new integrations". The Verge. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  15. ^ Crook, Jordan. "Slack Adds Emoji Reactions".
  16. ^ "Why Slack is Exploding (as a Community-Building Platform)". hootsuite.com. July 8, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
  17. ^ "Startup founder claims $2.8 billion startup Slack is misleading people about its free 'unlimited' plan". businessinsider.com. June 22, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
  18. ^ Ingrid Lunden (April 25, 2014). "Slack, Stewart Butterfield's Collaboration Software Startup, Has Raised $42.75M". Techcrunch. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  19. ^ Alex Hern (November 3, 2014). "Why Slack is worth $1bn: it's trying to change how we work". The Guardian. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  20. ^ Macmillan, Douglas. "Slack's Valuation More Than Doubles to $2.8 Billion in Five Months". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 28, 2015.
  21. ^ Ingrid Lunden (April 15, 2015). "Used Daily By 750K Workers, Slack Raises $160M, Valuing Collaboration Startup At $2.8B". Techcrunch. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
  22. ^ http://www.windowscentral.com/slack-windows-phone-app-beta-now-available-everyone
  23. ^ http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/20/slack-brings-its-app-to-the-apple-watch-video/
  24. ^ http://uk.businessinsider.com/salesforce-evernote-slack-and-other-apple-watch-business-apps-2015-3?r=US
  25. ^ Fingas, Jon, Flickr creator takes sign-ups for Slack, an office collaboration tool with universal search, retrieved November 26, 2013
  26. ^ "Slack growth skyrockets: 10,000 new active users each week". Fortune. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  27. ^ "Billion-dollar startup Slack says it's adding $1 million in new contracts every 11 days". Business Insider. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  28. ^ "Slack continues huge growth, is now valued at $2.8 billion". The Verge. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  29. ^ "Slack Keeps On Growing". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
  30. ^ "Slack launches user groups, hits 1.7M daily active users and 470K paid seats". VentureBeat. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
  31. ^ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd7dbf46-d24c-11e4-9c25-00144feab7de.html
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