Techmeme: How Slack makes sure the work conversations of 365K people stay private (Kashmir Hill/Fusion)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

February 8, 2015, 9:50 PM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Google Acquires Odysee, An App For Private Photo/Video Backup And Sharing, Team Joins Google+ — Google may be adding more offline and private sharing features to its Google+ Photos service soon. It has acquired Odysee, an iOS and Android app that let users automatically back up photos …

More: Odysee, BetaNews, Engadget, VentureBeat and ResearchBuzz. Tweets: @korzing

Shane Harris / The Daily Beast:

Samsung's SmartTV privacy policy warns that voice recognition can collect and transmit sensitive personal information to improve the product — Your Samsung SmartTV Is Spying on You, Basically — You may be loving your new Internet-connected television and its convenient voice-command feature …

More: TechCrunch, CNET, SlashGear, SamMobile, Ubergizmo, Tom's Guide, International Business Times, The Verge, Gizmodo, Electronista, UPROXX, BGR and The Daily Dot

Christopher Solomon / Popular Mechanics:

Profile of Alex Holden, who tracked down the Russian hackers who stole over 1.2B credentials — Meet The Man Who Finds Your Stolen Passwords — Last summer a gang of Russian hackers was caught amassing the largest cache of stolen user names and passwords ever discovered—1.2 billion in all.

Tweets: @cwarzel

Steve LeVine / Quartz:

Profile of John B. Goodenough, who invented the lithium-ion battery and is now trying to build a powerful new super-battery — The man who brought us the lithium-ion battery at the age of 57 has an idea for a new one at 92 — AUSTIN, TEXAS—The chances are you have never heard of—nor …

More: Wired.co.uk. Tweets: @dtunkelang and @fmanjoo

Daniela Velázquez / Fast Company:

In Kansas City, Google Fiber penetrates wealthier neighborhoods, but digital divide remains — Lessons From Google's First Rollout Of Google Fiber — Three summers ago, it was everywhere: An old-fashioned ice cream truck with peppy, electronic music blaring from its speakers.

Kashmir Hill / Fusion:

How Slack makes sure the work conversations of 365K people stay private — How a start-up got 365,000 people to trust it with their office secrets — It was Anne Toth's first week at Slack, and she already had a crisis on her hands. “TeamNameGate,” she now calls the episode.

Tweets: @msquinn, @juliaangwin and @kashhill

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

How Fab went bust: e-commerce firm once worth $900M to sell for as little as $15M this month — THE TECH ‘TITANIC’: How red-hot startup Fab raised $330 million and then went bust — On Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, Fab CEO Jason Goldberg gathered a dozen executives in the eighth-floor conference room …

More: Re/code, Business Insider and Fast Company

Tweets: @zedshaw, @counternotions, @carlazanoni, @ajs, @evelynrusli and @delrey

John Herrman / The Awl:

For distribution, media companies turn to apps and services, whose ad-driven, mediated businesses mirror broadcast TV — The Next Internet Is TV — I was talking to someone who works on one of those half-dozen or so apps that we tend to associate with teenagers: the ones that were built around …

More: Gigaom and everwas. Tweets: @tim, @stevebryant, @grahamfarmelo, @mattyglesias, @frankpasquale, @dkthomp, @mathewi, @mattbuchanan, @digiphile and @dangillmor

Julie Bort / Business Insider:

Interview with Amit Singh about Google for Work's progress and plans for the future — We talked to the head of Google's next multibillion-dollar business. Here's what he told us — Five years ago next month, Google got serious about creating a new revenue stream for itself beyond search ads …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @benedictevans and @charlesarthur

Kevin Roose / Fusion:

How Waterloo recovered after BlackBerry's decline and avoided a talent exodus — The life, death, and rebirth of BlackBerry's hometown — It's a little after 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night, and I'm sitting in a freezing rental car outside the BlackBerry headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, looking for signs of life.

Tweets: @pmarca, @kevinroose and @cdixon

Paul Carsten / Reuters:

China's Alibaba to invest $590 million in smartphone maker Meizu — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said in a statement on Monday it will buy a minority stake in domestic smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co for $590 million. Alibaba didn't disclose how much of the privately owned handset maker it will acquire.

More: Re/code

Chris Gayomali / Fast Company:

Inside Zulily, the flash sale e-commerce company for young mothers that's about to hit $1B in annual revenue — The Billion-Dollar E-commerce Company You Know Nothing About — Zulily has defied the conventional wisdom—marketing to moms, sticking with flash sales, evading Amazon.

Tweets: @gsterling. Thanks:@chrisgayomali

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26 — Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.

Zoho:

Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:

Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Great Chat:

So what happens after AGI?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:50 PM ET, February 8, 2015.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.