The Peril of Old Slack Posts ⇥ nymag.com

Brian Feldman, New York magazine:

On Tuesday evening, Vox Media announced that it had acquired New York Magazine and its associated brands. This includes Intelligencer, the website you are reading right now. In an all-hands meeting at New York’s Canal Street office at noon yesterday, Vox head honcho Jim Bankoff and New York Media CEO Pam Wasserstein addressed the tension floating throughout the company. There will not be any layoffs, they stressed. It’s, supposedly, business as usual. Still, uncertainty lingered in the air.

Of the many known unknowns, a few centered around Slack, the workplace communication software popular in media circles. Anxiety regarding Slack yesterday was exacerbated by rumors and murmurs. In the afternoon, a similar all-hands meeting occurred at Vox’s headquarters in the Financial District, and a harrowing detail of the acquisition emerged. The gossip, as conveyed in a group chat of NYMag employees, was: “They told Vox we’re all gonna be on one Slack.” Absolutely devastating.

I can think of few more catastrophic circumstances than if Slack’s archives were leaked. For what it’s worth, I’m not much sassier in Slack than I am anywhere else online or in real life — and I’m sure many people are the same way — but the looser context of a chat room means that the nuance gets lost within jokes, private conversations, and snide comments.