For when a screen shot just won’t cut it, Slack’s paid users can now share live video of their screens during video calls. The addition of the feature comes a slow two years after Slack bought Screenhero, a startup that offered enterprise screenshare, in a cash-and-stock deal for its tech and six employees. The feature will roll out on Slack’s latest Mac and Windows apps over the next few days.
To use Slack screensharing, fire up a video call then hit the screenshare button. You can select your preferred screen if you’re using several, your webcam will deactivate, and Slack notifications won’t appear to avoid exposing any private info. Viewers will see all of your shared screen including your cursor so you can easily point things out.
Slack’s native screensharing feature will compete with several integrations with third-party products it already offered, including Skype, BlueJeans, Appear.in, Google Hangouts, and Zoom. They’ll all continue to work.
The launch is an example of how Slack is happy to offer an ecosystem of apps, but isn’t afraid to overshadow them by building its own native versions. That could give pause to some developers working on seemingly intuitive extensions of Slack’s core functionality.