Google has launched an attempt to make remote working a bit more engaging with new platform that allows users to create and share small video messages within the team for effective communication.
ThreadIt has been created by Google’s in-house incubator, Area 120, and will be available both as a website and as a Chrome extension.
Google believes that ThreadIt can be a great way for people to put their point across directly to their co-workers, and also help reduce unwanted video conferencing meetings.
ThreadIt
At its heart, ThreadIt allows users to record short videos of themselves speaking and share them with selected coworkers
Team members can reply to the video whenever they’re available, regardless of the time zone they’re in, thus creating a chronologically sorted thread of video communication without requiring all of them to be present at the same time.
The sender of the videos can also control how viewers can interact with the video and can give view-only access or allow them to add a new clip in response to the original video.
According to Google, ThreadIt sits somewhere in between lengthy group video calls and short emails, but still looks to include the best of both worlds. The team that created ThreadIt started working on the project just over a year back before the pandemic changed the way we live and work – ironically meaning they had never met personally with each other.
ThreadIt is currently in a public beta phase and is available for anyone to try, with Google set to assess user feedback and public interest before deciding whether to build new features.