How The New York Times and other publishers are using Slack as a content tool
Publishers adopted Slack to cut down on email and open up communication, but many are now finding that Slack can also enable forms of publishing. Slack’s real-time nature has made it a viable way for publishers to keep track of breaking-news stories, for example, while other publishers are finding that Slack can be a viable alternative to run-of-the-mill live-blogging software.
“Slack has made ease of integration a priority. It’s trying to serve as a platform, not just a way for people to communicate,” said New York Times interactive news developer Michael Strickland. “It’s something people are relying on and integrating more deeply into their systems. It’s been effective at that so far.”
Slack, as of October, had 1.7m daily active users, most of whom are glued to the app at least eight hours a day. And where their users go, publishers are soon to follow. In August, Breaking News introduced a custom Slack integration that lets other organizations users pipe global news alerts directly into their Slack channels. Breaking News created the integration after getting multiple requests from news organisations who had created their own alternatives with RSS feeds, said Breaking News general manager Cory Bergman, who said that “several hundred” organizations have integrated the feature since August.
“Since there are so many people using Slack, this felt like a natural fit for us. It was an easy way for us to test something and see if there was any interest,” Bergman said.
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