Gilad Edelman: Literally never.
Lauren Goode: That’s the appropriate response. What if I told you, unfortunately, even more video chat apps are coming your way?
Gilad Edelman: I was going to ask if we could send this chat for texting, I guess.
Lauren Goode: Sorry, we can’t do that, because this is a podcast.
Gilad Edelman: Oh, we’re recording this?
Lauren Goode: YES. And we’re watching the video.
Gilad Edelman: Oh my God.
Lauren Goode: That’s why-
Gilad Edelman: Oh, yes, here I am.
Lauren Goode: Right. Yes, we should talk about this.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Hi guys. Welcome to the Utility Lab. I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED. And as you may know by our intro, my regular podcast co-host Michael Carole isn’t here this week. He’s having a well-deserved vacation. He is in the forest. He doesn’t have cell service, or maybe he’s just lazy. But-
Gilad Edelman: OH.
Lauren Goode: Gotta start with a dad joke. But filling in as my co-host for the next few episodes was Gilad Edelman, my fellow senior writer here at WIRED. Hey Gilad, thanks for joining me.
Gilad Edelman: Hi. Thank you for helping me.
Lauren Goode: It’s nice to have you.
Gilad Edelman: In honor of the podcast dad, Calore, who went out, I didn’t have any animal products to eat as of today.
Lauren Goode: Really?
Gilad Edelman: YES.
Lauren Goode: That’s pretty awesome. How long will you maintain that?
Gilad Edelman: Until right after the podcast.
Lauren Goode: Great. I’m sure Mike appreciates any effort you’re making. Okay, so we joked earlier about taking a break, and that’s because today we’re talking about something that we use every day at WIRED, and I’m sure many of you do too. I’m talking about Slack, the workplace messaging service.
Slack has really defined our work lives, especially over the past few years, when so many desk workers have worked from home. Slack is now its own verb. People say like, “He hit me,” or, “Just slide it for me.” It’s one of the apps that shape office culture. It gets people in trouble sometimes. But overall, it allows us to communicate a little better when we’re not all in the same office, or in our case the newsroom. So there’s this feature on Slack called Huddles. It launched last year and this allows you to spontaneously join a voice call with anyone in your Slack workspace. And now there’s a new, new feature in Group Chat. And Gilad, are you ready for this?
Gilad Edelman: Wait a minute. ALRIGHT.
Lauren Goode: It’s Zoom.
Gilad Edelman: Zoom in Slack.
Lauren Goode: ALRIGHT. It’s not really Zoom.
