Slack 推出“Add to Slack”,让工作像点赞一样轻巧Slack 的真正强大之处在于它的平台性,其他工具可以接入并很好的融合到这个平台当中。这家公司表示 Slack 现在已经加入了超过 80 个这样的整合,而且有成千上万的开发者正在为它添加更多整合工具。
如果你想在自己的 Slack 实例中添加某个整合的话,你们团队需要在 Slack 的整合页面上找到你想要的整合。这样做虽然已经足够简单,但是你需要提前了解自己的团队需要怎样的整合。为了帮助用户根据使用情景添加整合,Slack 正在 推出一个“Add to Slack”按钮 ,其他公司可以将这个按钮添加到自己的网站或者应用中。
例如,Nuzzel 和 Box 已经在自己的网站上使用“Add to Slack”按钮,这个按钮不仅可以起到提示作用,而且可以直接将 Box 整合到你们团队的 Slack 实例中。这对于 Slack 的发展来说是一个简单而高明的功能。
Slack 决定在自己的软件之外实现更简单的整合功能应该是受到了 Facebook 的启发,后者的按钮已经遍布了互联网的各个角落。
这一举动大大提升了 Facebook 在网上的覆盖范围,而且 Facebook 本身不需要进行整合工作就可以深度整合到大批网站当中。现在 Slack 也在做同样的事情,不过它针对的是企业应用。
如果你已经完成了整合,这些按钮可以让你发送各种内容到 Slack 频道,具体内容取决于整合的服务。以 Box 为例,你可以直接在 Box 中向团队发送文件,这是一个非常方便的功能。
该公司表示,这个按钮背后的理念是想帮助独立开发者直接安装整合、机器人和其他工具到 Slack,这就是“Add to Slack”按钮现在已经加入了 它的 API 的原因。
这个想法是完全合理的。当你在网上浏览新的网站或应用时,看到这个 Slack 按钮也许会帮助你决定使用这项服务,甚至成为它的付费用户。这对于 Slack 和其他公司来说都是一件好事,因为 Slack 可以通过这项功能维持用户的满意度和活跃度,而用户也可以尝试一些专门适配 Slack 的新功能。这将会开启一个蓬勃发展的生态系统。
如果仅仅向你展示下面的整合列表,你也许不太能想出自己需要在 Slack 上整合它们的情景:
而且由于现在我们的工作和私人生活已经逐渐在网络上逐渐融合,因此这个按钮也能够像 Facebook 的点赞按钮一样吸引我们的注意力:
以下是 Invision 的应用实例 ,团队成员可以直接将设计成果的截屏发送到 Slack 频道。
如果连 电子邮件都能在 Slack 找到一席之地 ,那么我想任何产品都能整合到 Slack。
也许在一年之后,已经整合到 Slack 的服务会远远多于没有整合的服务。
Slack Leans On Companies Like Box And Nuzzel To Use “Add To Slack” Buttons For Contextual Integration
Slack’s true power is being a platform. A platform that other tools can plug into and play nice with. The company says there are 80+ of these types of integrations and thousands of developers hacking away at adding more.
Right now, you have to rely on you or someone on your team finding the integrations that you want on the integrations page and then adding it to your instance of Slack. Easy enough, but it’s not until you need something pulled into Slack where you find out that it’s a good idea to add that integration. To help those contextual integrations along, Slack is introducing an “Add To Slack” button that companies can add to their sites and apps.
For example, Nuzzel and Box are using the “Add To Slack” button on their sites, which is not only a reminder, but a call to action to add Box as an integration to your team’s instance of Slack. Simple, yet virally smart for growth.
Slack’s decision to allow simpler integration outside of its own software domain harks back to Facebook’s work to integrate its own buttons around the Internet.
In a single move, Facebook greatly expanded its reach online, and deeply integrated with a host of sites without having to do integration work itself. Here, Slack is doing something similar, but inside of the constellation of business apps.
If you’ve already integrated, or once you do, those buttons may let you send things to Slack channels, depending on what the service is. In Box’s case, you can send a file to your team right from Box. Super handy.
The company says the thought behind this button is to help indie developers get their integrations, bots and other tools out there and installed, which is why the “Add To Slack” button is now in its API.
The whole idea makes sense. As you surf the web and try new sites or apps, seeing that Slack button might help you make the decision to try the service and potentially even pay for it. It’s a win for both companies, since Slack keeps you happy and active within its product and you get to try new functionality tailored just for it. It’s a powerful beginning to a budding ecosystem.
If you’re presented with this list, you’re less likely to think of the context in which you’d need one of them to access or interact with Slack:
And since our work and personal lives are merging online, seeing this button will grab attention much like Facebook’s Like button does today:
Here’s Invision’s implementation, allowing team members to ship screens to channels that need to see what they’re working on:
If email can find a place in Slack, then any product can I suppose.
In a year, it will be a better question to ask who is not integrated with Slack, than who is.
Source:TC
邮件App Geronimo,让处理邮件变得像玩游戏一样有趣Erik Lukas 让我看看他手机上的邮件。
他问我:“你想扔掉一些邮件吗?”没错,他把这个整理过程叫做丢弃。他得用一个文件夹来整理邮件,不然的话其他人会觉得他的邮件乱七八糟的。
这款邮件App叫做Geronimo,于8月27日正式发布iPhone版和Apple Watch版,并且使用均是免费的。作为创始人,Lukas给我演示了应用程序的运作过程。首先,我将一封Linkedin里的邮件进行长按,之后就能感受到一种无形的数字攫取,然后我将大拇指滑到屏幕的右下方,这时邮件触碰到屏幕边缘就消失销毁了。
这个互动过程出其意料地会满足用户的使用心理,或者,换种说法,可能会很有趣。
但是,准确地说,其实它并不该用有趣来形容。虽然说你使用的过程可能很有趣,但是由于邮件本身它不是有趣的,所以Geronimo也不是有趣的。
发布自Jumpin Labs的Geronimo可以将Gmail账户里邮件进行安排布局, Lukas称之为一种设计思路式的布局。如果说仅仅从纯粹的用户使用界面来说,这款App在Gmail普通应用程序和Apple有限的邮件选择基础上是一种完善和提升。
虽然说在视觉上,它没有Google Inbox那么使人满意,但是却在新奇的交流互动方面弥补了不足。最起码,Geronimo的使用过程是很有趣的,就像Lukas所说的,这是一个优势。他向我演示的时候说:“我们正在努力地将邮件重新赋予人性。”
这款App运用不全靠直觉的手势交互方式,使得整理和删除文件的过程有点像玩游戏。如果你想要销毁、存档或者标记邮件,只需要简单地滑到屏幕上某个特定的角落就可以完成操作。轻触手机背面,之后邮件就像雪花一样直接从你的收件箱里消除。你还可以将手机竖直倾斜来查看日常的邮件,不需要一直沿着手机上下滑动。而左右滑动就是查看前一天或者后一天的邮件。
换句话说,Geronimo与你之前所使用过的任意一款邮件App都不一样。
目前,Lukas正在利用另一种交流形式,研发一种新的语言来处理邮件。他说:“邮件没有利用以往我们从手机短信里学到的那些有趣的创新性的东西。”
许多的开发商都试图将邮件变得像文本打字那样简单,但是Lukas还拥有其他的一些特色优势,比如说能够快速与重要人士进行交流沟通、定制个性化图片等。Geronimo可以让你对五位重要的的联系人进行置顶,以便进行快速对话。
你可以将你以往邮件历史当中的某一封转发给联系人,或者可以直接点击联系人的头像图片来创建新的信息。如果说你处在创建信息的窗口之下,你可以通过拇指向左滑动来访问照片流,然后利用la Snapchat附件进行发送。
Geronimo与那些传统的邮件App最大的不同就在于它的时间轴浏览。每天不同的邮件被分在了几个不同的区,而不是全部放在同一个界面。顶部的那些图文并茂的时间轴可以清晰地让你看到哪些天有未读邮件。
Lukas解释说:“不管你使用哪一款邮件App,其实我们都非常依赖收件箱的时间顺序,以此来查看邮件。”Geronimo通过拖放个人邮件重新安排邮件的顺序,来改变人们以前的想法。这是App一个简便且非常有用的特性,你可以不用一个个地浏览星标文件夹就把事情按照优先顺序安排妥当。
这种直接的操作显示了Geronimo的一种物质性。你能感觉出Lukas聘用了移动游戏开发商来构造新的交互手势,而每一个手势又让你感觉发现了一个全新的操作。
他说:“即使现在这些令人满意的游戏机制和互动不是那么广泛地被使用,但是我们还是想知道它们是否有用并且有效。”
事实上,当你用了一段时间之后,你就会发现它能够开启强有力的用户操作,比如说滑动查看不同的日常邮件、自动星标或者存档邮件。但是你要是想要升级更新至下一个级别,你就得证明你已经会使用这款App了。
如果你已经习惯使用这些交互的话,其实比你用熟悉的老式邮箱程序还快,只是在你习惯之前你得花一段时间来学习。而这一点正是Geronimo能否留住用户的关键。目前的我们已经习惯以某种特定的方式来处理邮件。
这是一场快速梳理文件的高效游戏。其实不管有多少特色的智能手势,邮件永远都不会让你充分享受,但是它却能够减轻你的烦恼与负担。
This App Makes a Wacky Game Out of Sorting Your Email
ERIK LUKAS HANDS me his iPhone and invites me to go through his mail.
“Do you want to toss some emails?” he asks. That’s right, he calls it tossing. He has a folder for this, because “otherwise people get a little slap-happy with my emails.”
Lukas, the founder of the email app Geronimo (which launches for free on Aug. 27 for iPhone and Apple Watch) shows me how the app works. I long-press on an email from Linkedin until I sense an intangible digital grab, then flick my thumb toward the lower right hand corner of the screen. The email hurtles toward the edge and disappears. Trashed.
The interaction is surprisingly satisfying. Almost, oh, I don’t know…fun?
Well, not fun, exactly. Email by its very nature email isn’t fun, so Geronimo isn’t either, even though you can tell it really, really would like to be.
Geronimo, from Jumpin Labs, pulls in email from your Gmail account and arranges it in what Lukas describes as a “design-driven” layout. In terms of pure user interface, it’s an improvement on Gmail’s mediocre app and Apple’s sterile Mail option. It’s less visually exciting than Google Inbox, but makes up for that in novel interactions. At the very least, Geronimo is interesting to use, and if you ask Lukas, that’s a win. “We’re trying to re-humanize email,” he says while walking me through a demo.
The app is full of not-quite-intuitive gestural interactions that make sorting and deleting email feel a bit like playing a game. To trash, archive, or label an email, simply flick it toward a specific corner of the screen. Tap the back of your phone, and robo-emails fall away from your inbox like snowflakes. Tilt your phone vertically to scroll through the day’s emails without dragging a finger along the screen. Flicking to the left or the right moves you from one day’s emails to the next.
In other words, Geronimo is unlike any email app you’ve ever used.
Lukas is developing a new language for handling email by drawing on another form of communication: messaging. “Email doesn’t take advantage of any of the interesting, creative things that we’ve learned from mobile messaging,” he says. Many developers are trying to make email as simple as texting, but Lukas is riffing on other features too, like being able to quickly communicate with a few important people, or customizing images. Geronimo solves for that by letting you place as many as five quick contacts at the top of your inbox. You can drag emails from your timeline to a contact to forward it, or tap on the contact’s picture to compose a message. Once you’re in the compose window, you can access your photo library by dragging the left side of the screen over with your thumb and draw on that attachment (a la Snapchat) before you send it.
Neat stuff, but Geronimo’s most significant departure from traditional email apps is its timeline view. Instead of seeing a single vertical wall of emails, days are split up into separate blocks, and a pictorial timeline at the top give you an overview of which days have the most unread emails. “We’re kind of slaves to the chronological order of the inbox, no matter what app you’re using,” Lukas explains. Geronimo tries to upend that idea by allowing you rearrange the order of your messages by dragging and dropping individual emails. It’s a simple but handy feature that allows you to prioritize your actions without having to navigate to a separate starred folder.
This direct manipulation gives Geronimo a sense of physicality. You can tell Lukas hired mobile game developers to come up with new ways to interact; every gesture you learn feels like you’ve discovered a new power move. “We wondered, what are game mechanics and interactions that are satisfying that can be applied here that aren’t overboard but are useful and efficient?” And indeed, after you use the app for a while, it unlocks power user moves like flicking your wrist to move through days and auto-starring or archiving all emails. The thought being, you have to prove you know how to use the app before you can advance to the next level.
Once you nail the interactions, it might be even quicker than using the old Mail standby—it’s just going to take a bit learning. And that’s where Geronimo will hook or lose you. We’ve grown accustomed to dealing with email in a certain way. It’s an efficiency game—plow through the pile as quickly as possible. Email will never truly be enjoyable, no matter how many clever gestural features you build into it. But it canbe less painful.
Source:wired
会议服务应用 DoubleDutch获4500万美元 E 轮融资会议服务应用 DoubleDutch 12日宣布美元 4500 万元E轮融资。本轮融资由 KKR 领投,柏尚投资(Bessemer Venture Partners)、Index Ventures以及 毅創投資(Enspire Capital)等跟投。
DoubleDutch 首席执行官劳伦斯 · 科伯恩说:"我们很高兴与 KKR 合作应对下一阶段增长目标。"世界上每年花在会议会议和展会上的费用高达$ 5650 亿,这一营销花费数额巨大,市场混杂,我们相信,DoubleDutch 可以提供更好的帮助。
公司和展会机构可以利用 DoubleDutch 在移动端发布会议日程,管理参会者的签到并和他们产生更多互动。在会后也会为企业提供相应的报告和反馈,在反馈的基础上公司可以挖掘更多潜在顾客,带来更多交易。
DoubleDutch 服务的客户超过 1000 多个,现有员工260多人,分别在 旧金山、 阿姆斯特丹、 伦敦、 香港 ,波特兰等世界各地。
DoubleDutch 提供了一个 SaaS 样定价的模型,客户可以通过手机应用程序获取事件详细分析,使他们能够运行,管理和评价所有的活动。
KKR 的 Ted Oberwager 说:"当越来越多的公司寻找可靠的数据来衡量他们的营销计划的成功与否,DoubleDutch 这一完美的平台将为你更好的提供战略和决定"。"我们期待与团队合作,实现业务增长"。
DoubleDutch Closes $45 Million in Funding
Mobile event technology and event performance company DoubleDutch today announced a $45 million round of growth financing led by KKR, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, and others. The company cites global expansion, sales and marketing, and targeted acquisitions as the primary use of proceeds.
“The future of event tech is marketing driven innovation, not logistics, and I think our customers appreciate this.”
“We are thrilled to team up with KKR to tackle this next stage of growth,” said DoubleDutch CEO Lawrence Coburn. “The $565 billion spent annually on events and conferences - the biggest marketing spend in the world - is running blind. We believe that DoubleDutch can help.”
DoubleDutch serves corporate events, associations, and trade shows, providing a best-in-class mobile application for attendees on the front end, and near real-time event performance analytics for event organizers on the back end, complete with sentiment analysis and engagement benchmarks.
“It’s an exciting time to be in software,” said DoubleDutch CTO Nicholas Clark. “For the first time, we have the ability to instrument the physical world like we would a website, a phenomenon that has the potential to completely reinvent how events and conferences are run, managed, and measured. Marketers no longer need to run blind when it comes to events.”
DoubleDutch has more than 1,000 customers and now employs more than 260 people around the world in San Francisco, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, and Portland.
“We are growing well north of 100 percent year over year, and see no signs of things slowing down,” said Pankaj Prasad, DoubleDutch’s Co-Founder and Global Head of Sales. “Our product is being adopted all over the world by events of all sizes, and in any industry, in order to measure their success.”
To date, the company has sold primarily to event organizers and planners, but has plans to help deliver more ROI to the event industry’s sponsors and exhibitors, in the process, unlocking new revenue streams for organizers.
Events sit at the intersection of three key stakeholders: attendees, exhibitors, and organizers, and have all the elements of a classic, multi-sided market. The software opportunity for the category is broader than just digitizing the event program. By leveraging its command of the data coming from the show floor, DoubleDutch provides an opportunity for attendees to enjoy a personalized and curated experience, organizers to benchmark and optimize event performance, and exhibitors to ensure they do not leave leads on the table.
DoubleDutch offers a SaaS-like pricing model in which customers gain year-round access to mobile apps and event analytics, giving them the ability to run, manage, and evaluate all of the events within their portfolio.
“DoubleDutch is designing for the next stage of social as well as data to drive smarter decision making for marketers,” said Annie Tsai, Chief Customer Officer at DoubleDutch. “The future of event tech is marketing driven innovation, not logistics, and I think our customers appreciate this.”
“As more and more companies look for reliable data to measure the success of their marketing programs, DoubleDutch provides the perfect platform to inform their strategy and decisions,” said Ted Oberwager of KKR. “We look forward to working with the team to help grow the business.”
For KKR, the investment is part of the firm’s growth equity strategy, which is focused on market-leading, high-growth companies for which KKR can be a unique partner in helping reach scale and the next level of growth. KKR is funding the investment from the balance sheet of KKR & Co. LP (NYSE:KKR).
来源:businesswire