Slack's plan for world domination takes an important step forward
The latter has really taken off: There are over 80 apps listed on Slack's website that simply integrate right into your chats. For instance, a Twitter integration can alert Slack users whenever a brand's account gets a new message.
But there are lots of developers hacking together their own custom Slack apps to make the chat platform work better on their own terms. It works really well for those who take the time and effort, but it's been really hard to share those custom integrations with others.
Until now. Today, Slack introduces the "Add To Slack" button, an easy way for developers to make their apps send notifications into Slack, the company announced. It's a simple, lightweight way for developers to make their stuff work with Slack without having to put in a ton of effort.
For instance, cloud storage app Box is rolling out an Add To Slack button today that lets you throw a file into a Slack chat room without leaving the app.
Slack is announcing a dozen launch partners for the button, including Box, news app Nuzzel, and design prototyping tool InVision, with the promise of more to come.
"If you run a service or app that periodically sends notifications, or you'd like users to share their work directly into Slack without leaving your app, chances are you could easily make use of this feature," Slack says in a blog entry.
Plus, with this news, Slack is raising the ceiling on how many integrations its free users can have, from 5 up to 10.
Add To Slack seems simple, but there's a lot of potential here. If Slack can deliver on the promise of making it easy to share code and custom integrations, it seems like it could be a really important first step towards, say, a paid Slack app store.
And even if that's not on Slack's agenda, it's just another way to make the app more useful to people without breaking its focus on making life easy for users.
Regardless, it's a solid way for the multibillion-dollar chat startup to keep its momentum going.