Facebook Planning Office Version To Rival LinkedIn, Google 91
An anonymous reader points out a report that Facebook may be coming out with an office version to take on LinkedIn. Facebook at Work would “allow users to chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents.” "Facebook is reportedly gearing up to take on LinkedIn, Google's Drive and services, Microsoft's Outlook and Yammer with a workplace-friendly version of the social networking site, but such a dream is unlikely to appeal to the enterprise. As reported last week by the Financial Times, "Facebook at Work" is a new product designed to allow professional users to message colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents. The website will have the same look as standard Facebook — including a news feed and groups — but according to people familiar with the matter, the idea is to keep work and personal accounts separate. It makes sense for the social networking giant. Launching a professional version can boost ad revenue, keep engagement up and give the company a valuable new market to tap. But in application, cracking the corporate world won't be easy."
Yammer (Score:1)
You mean Yammer?
This article is useless (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Just like the product.
The company I used to work for implemented Microsoft's Yammer, and it was a vast wasteland devoid of any content whatsoever. Just people wasting time with "shout outs."
This is Facebook being led down a path to nowhere because other companies decided to go there. Unfortunately for all of them, these are solutions to a question that nobody asked.
Re:This article is useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This article is useless (Score:4, Insightful)
you need active champions, community managers, and a strategy to nurture the community continuously.
Spot on. Every single failure I've seen of an internal communications tool that wasn't Email or IM failed because of a lack of one of the three things you mentioned. They are tools, but they need to much more help to grow than something that everyone has to use, like a case system or a CRM.
Re: (Score:2)
Every Single Failure I've seen is based on YACC (Yet Another Communication Channel). It is just a distraction from the job. It is either too noisy or a ghost town.
Lets look at IM: when faced with using Hangouts, Lync, Skype, and GOTOMEETINGs, it is confusing for average people when or which to use. Redundant choices doesn't make things better. More options doesn't mean better options, or even better results.
Re: (Score:2)
Better tools don't fix bad communication.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason for this.
There are only so many hours in a day, and only so many of them spent at work. Workplaces will eventually settle on the most efficient tools. These aren't going to be the most powerful tools or even the simplest to use, but the ones who give people the most bang for their buck.
For communications, there's e-mail, IM, and the phone. For document management, there (should be) CMS. For sharing company documents, there's the internal website. For socializing, there's the water cooler.
Wh
Re: (Score:3)
History seems to repeat itself with every new technology.
1. is new fangled and confusing, only used by a few. .
2. hits mass acceptance.
3. is not perceived as useful at work because people will not actually get work done, they will just screw off.
4. starts to become useful and appealing as a way to get work done faster.
5. becomes the status quo for work environment and getting work done becomes impossible without the
In the place of you can place:
a. Telephone
b. Personal Computer
c. Email
d. Internet
e. Ins
Re: (Score:1)
a. Telephone
b. Personal Computer
c. Email
d. Internet
h. Cellular Phones
i. Smart Phones
All hit stage 5 of mass acceptance at work before hitting mass acceptance.
Re: (Score:2)
All hit stage 5 of mass acceptance at work before hitting mass acceptance.
I have to call you out on 'email' and 'internet,' at least outside of tech companies.
I started in the working world in 1988, so I watched the arrival of email and internet. Long after everyone had it at home, PCs at work didn't have email / net access. "Mabel in the back" might have had a US Robotics modem so she could dial-up "the email" but that was it. In many businesses PCs weren't networked, or if they were it was via Ne
Re:This article is useless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
g. cloud services
For all the paranoia about cloud services eating your privacy, the one place where they're a no-brainer is as paid services targeting corporations. The cloud itself, in this case, could be hosted by the corporation - but in any case, it wouldn't be ad-funded, and there's no reason to think that a hosting organization would snoop on content they're paid not to snoop on.
But in this case step 3 ("is not perceived as useful...") has some entrenched interests helping to muddy the waters. Turns
Re:This article is useless (Score:5, Interesting)
Hardly anyone I know under the age of 30 uses it unless they're foreign or looking for a new job. I doubt Facebook will have a problem with market penetration like the author of the linked article thinks they will.
So assuming what you're saying is right, it seems like Facebook will run into a completely different problem: they're fighting over a failing market. If nobody wants to use LinkedIn, then who's going to use Facebook's version of LinkedIn?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't do Facebook at all and I don't see any reason to either.
I do use Linkedin, but mostly as an address book.
Re:This article is useless (Score:5, Insightful)
. Hardly anyone I know under the age of 30 uses it unless they're foreign or looking for a new job.
Well yes, that is the point of LInked-in, to find jobs, and to keep in touch with people you know from work, but don't necessarily want to hear about their new puppy.
Fun (Score:4, Interesting)
Just in time, I was just thinking that I don't share enough already. What I'm just wondering now is if they are going to allow selfies and if I am going to be cyberbullied.
Haven't we shared enough already. Isn't this just another avenue into your boss requesting access to your FB account to check what is posted on your FB work page. Or one step away from FB charging money for a "Premium" membership where you can read your employees posts etc.
Bob just liked that you have a new office chair! yea FB can go F themselves. Never was a part of it and all I see is people trying to impress each other with what they did.
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just no, but fuck no.
Having internal company correspondence, communication between groups and corporate offices will have valuable company information in Facebook's hands. We've had people walked out, fired, for using Evernote in meetings.
Remember what Zuckerman said.
"They trust me — dumb fucks," says Zuckerberg in one of the instant messages, first published by former Valleywag Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider, and now confirmed by Zuckerberg himself in Jose Antonio Vargas's New Yorker piece. Zuckerberg now tells Vargas, "I think I've grown and learned a lot" since those instant messages.
[John]
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds 100% reasonable to me - don't put company confidential out on the open web. Evernote is not secure.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
We've had people walked out, fired, for using Evernote in meetings.
I'm curious how you'd know. Did someone trip a content filter/IDS trying to use it or did someone grab a laptop/tablet and demand to see what they were doing?
It sounds pretty fascist to shitcan someone like that, especially if the policy they were fired under wasn't fairly specific about Evernote-type services.
It seems hard to believe someone would risk immediate termination for Evernote. I've known people who liked it but I don't think I know anyone who'd say "Yeah, I like it so much I'd risk getting fir
Depends on the security needs (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds pretty fascist to shitcan someone like that, especially if the policy they were fired under wasn't fairly specific about Evernote-type services.
Depends on the company and who their customers are. If your customer is the defense department (for example) then they might be pretty sensitive about you posting information to Evernote.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not opposed to a draconian security policy, but I would imagine that one of the major training and education components of working somewhere like that IS training and education about what you can and can't do and what the consequences of doing the wrong thing.
I would expect that having a security clearance would mean I would be subjected to hours (days?) of training in dealing with secrets, where you can put them, where you can't, etc, and the consequences of violating these rules. Using Evernote would
Re: (Score:3)
It isn't just secrets but any PII. Medical or financial for example. I work in state government and can tell you they have locked down many of these type of sites and track every keystroke and mouse click to include what sites you tried to get to even if it was blocked. It may be that they were fired at the meeting for a previous transgression (not necessarily transgressing at the meeting).
Re: (Score:2)
I just don't know how you get to the point where somebody is literally walked out of a building from a meeting after being "discovered" using Evernote. Either they were poorly informed or they were actively interested in obtaining secrets.
I've met, worked with and (unfortunately) employed many people who were decidedly clueless. If it wasn't laid out in black and white for them they would inevitably do something stupid even when you or I would think it was absurdly obvious that the action was a bad idea. I've seen people surf for porn at work, mass email sensitive documents, fall asleep in the front row of a company meeting, post sensitive company or customer information to public websites, etc. In most cases the person was "surprised" to
Re: (Score:2)
"because if something isn't spelled out clearly to a 4th grade reading level then people will do it wrong."
People will still do it wrong, even if you build all the instructions for 4th grader. The problem with people is that they are people (Myself included).
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds pretty fascist to shitcan someone like that
In a right to work state in the US, you do not need a reason to be fired. (I'm skipping around protected classes here for simplicity)
Re: (Score:3)
That would actually be the opposite. You're thinking states with at-will employment.
Re: (Score:2)
That would actually be the opposite. You're thinking states with at-will employment.
Yeah .. my oops
Re: (Score:1)
Right, but you generally DO need a reason to deny them unemployment compensation -- they have to be fired for cause and the rules are quite strict.
I've fired somebody with what HR said were well-documented for-cause reasons just to have the person appeal and the state find in their favor and award unemployment. In my case they felt that the letters written and the HR policy weren't quite specific enough about not showing up for work and claiming "vacation" in an email at 9:30 AM.
Maybe some places don't car
Re: (Score:2)
Right, but you generally DO need a reason to deny them unemployment compensation -- they have to be fired for cause and the rules are quite strict.
I'm not denying that .. I was trying to point out that in the words of the OP I was replying to that the states allow companies to be even more "fascist" than what he was implying.
Re: (Score:2)
In my case they felt that the letters written and the HR policy weren't quite specific enough about not showing up for work and claiming "vacation" in an email at 9:30 AM.
Where I work, I think that the unemployment office would find that the vacation policy contains far too much of trying to have their cake and eat it too on the part of the employer. Here, they went from 2 weeks of vacation with unlimited carryover plus sick days to X number of weeks of vacation including sick leave depending on seniority. People like me who ha been here for 8 years lost $25k or more in vacation time due to the change in policy. However, even though they went to this PTO option, they still
Re: (Score:2)
They cannot arbitrarily change the contract, then claim you voided it by not agreeing to it. Accrued vacation is property of the employee, as accounted for by the employer. Any reasonable lawyer should be able to get it, and legal fees.
IANAL, so my opinion is worthless legal advice.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe some places don't care, but usually there's some kind of dollar cost to companies that do a lot of at-will terminations that result in unemployment compensation.
Yes, their premiums rise as claims increase, to a point. At that point, it is cheaper to layoff employees, let them collect unemployment, and then rehire them when demand picks back up since you've already maxed out your premiums. Seasonal employment is perfect for this, with employees getting a paid vacation through unemployment knowing they will be rehired when the season restarts. It's an economically rational approach to the problem of seasonal demand and low wage workers that works out well for both si
Re: (Score:3)
It was a combination of similar events. He'd been caught taking video inside the company, walking around with his iPad up and recording. Evernote was the well known trigger. And he was a manager (still is just somewhere else). We are pretty picky about electronics. The sign at the front entrance says we're not allowed to bring in USB keys and other personal electronics (like laptops or wireless only tablets). But again, that is more to the "don't let personal devices access the corporate wired/wireless netw
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, we're not permitted to take pictures of servers in the data center.
I once worked on project in the US that used a bunch of Polish engineers. At the time certain computers were prohibited exports to behind the iron curtain (and this was well before the wall came down). Of course our project used such a particular mini-computer (I think it was a VAX) for doing some compiling that these Polish engineers needed. To assuage the US export control restrictions, this computer was put in a sealed cabinet that the Polish engineers couldn't access.
A short time later one of the eng
Re:Nope (Score:4, Informative)
Fascist? Nope.
Your Employer provides with tools and guidelines. if something is not explicitly allowed, then it is your responsibility to check if it is according to the rules of the company. Giving up the control over data usually is not acceptable.
If you use tools which essentially give up the control over the data to any third party (as you do in evernote), possibly even with terms and conditions which have zero accountability of the service provider, just because you like a service because it is "practical and free".
These "practical and free" services would be where i as attacker would start targeted attacks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I worked in the past at a company that did something similar to a "Facebook at work". The number one rule to get people to use it: never, EVER call it "Facebook for work". Call it "Shining Communications Turd", "Chainsaw through productivity", "Free Crack", just don't call it "Facebook for work".
I think Facebook might have a bigger uphill battle here than it thinks.
We've had people walked out, fired, for using Evernote in meetings.
Where did you work, the NSA?
Re: (Score:3)
Not just no, but fuck no.
Having internal company correspondence, communication between groups and corporate offices will have valuable company information in Facebook's hands. We've had people walked out, fired, for using Evernote in meetings.
Remember what Zuckerman said.
"They trust me — dumb fucks," says Zuckerberg in one of the instant messages, first published by former Valleywag Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider, and now confirmed by Zuckerberg himself in Jose Antonio Vargas's New Yorker piece. Zuckerberg now tells Vargas, "I think I've grown and learned a lot" since those instant messages.
[John]
I thought the same thing when I read TFS. My company deals with secret stuff and wouldn't want their data flowing through Facebook's servers. We block cloud storage as it is.
Blocked on proxies (Score:2)
Yea sure, business will want to unblock Facebook on their proxies just because you have a "For Work" version. It will not happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea sure, business will want to unblock Facebook on their proxies just because you have a "For Work" version. It will not happen.
Who knows? Who cares? I currently work for a large company, where they actively encourage staff to use Linkedin and also have an internal, social thingie. I have been there once; all I saw was sales account managers and similar - the ones who enjoy grazing on their own navel fluff, basically.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook does not get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
No way businesses will allow this (Score:3)
Let me see, who's going to go an explain to the boss that we should (a) allow users access to FB on work boxen, then (b) encourage them to share business documents on it?
Not me, thanks.
OR (Score:1)
Or you could just use the phone, email, or even walk over to the next office to talk with someone.
Re: (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Office Version ? (Score:1)
Nope. NopeNopeNopeNopeNopeNopeNope (Score:2)
Sorry, I love Facebook. It's my connection to far-flung friends and the hub for my musical contacts. We share, we laugh, we pretend our lives matter. I don't accept any "friends" on FB with whom I work. FB.business will ultimately get linked to the FB.personal (because that's how marketing works) and that ain't happening for me.
Re: (Score:2)
I know a few people that use FB as a way to drum up business but they are generally self employed or in public facing jobs like Musicians announcing a new gig.
For the rest of us who are employees, & it's hard to stress this enough, FaceBook != LinkedIn!
I do not use FB through company ressources, it's for friends & family only. Work relations are through LinkedIn.
The two sets rarely have anything in common & that's how it will stay.
All tech companies move on each other (Score:2)
However I doubt that I would like my colleagues and Linkedin business contacts to know about my: racing hamster, gunpowder musket and jedi religion hobbies.
There is a reason people keep certain professional distance at work, distance about personal and private life.
As an employer I would like to know how many children, how many husbands my new prospective employee has, something that is not even an option at Linkedin.
Re: (Score:3)
However I doubt that I would like my colleagues and Linkedin business contacts to know about my: racing hamster, gunpowder musket and jedi religion hobbies.
But that means you aren't being authentic! And how can you be passionate about your work if you're not authentically passionate? Once Facebook enters the workplace, it's only a matter of time until your social and work life will be entwined even more! And you'll be able to tell all of your "real world" friends about how awesomes your workspace is! And H
Re: (Score:2)
As an employer I would like to know how many children, how many husbands my new prospective employee has
As an employer, you're not supposed to base hiring decisions on such information, so why would you want to know? "I don't want to hire a woman with kids because they'll take off too much sick time!" or "I only want single women because they can spend more time chained to their desk!" or, if the candidate is male, "Oh, they have a husband ... sorry, no gays allowed here!"
This setting 'asn't got much in it (Score:2)
Great. Just what I need, another 30 spams a day.
Hard to see it accepted (Score:5, Insightful)
Most managers I've dealt with think of Facebook as a time-waster. It's hard to see a brand acceptance of a Facebook-related service that's "for work".
I think most users associate it with their personal social lives and I would just about guarantee that Facebook would mandate linking your work profile to your social profile and most people would reject that.
For better or for worse, I think LinkedIn already is seen as the "work" social networking site and has the network effect going for it.
Re: (Score:2)
I can use internal email, phone, or walk to their office. Why do i need Facebook for work?
Like!
like MySpace for adults (Score:2)
Wishful thinking.
Sold! (Score:1)
Unless a company's official website is a Facebook page or your work requires Facebook use (advertising, law enforcement), I just don't see companies allowing you to waste time with the world's largest gossiping tool - Facebook, Workbook, Wastebook, or whatever.
> "They trust me — dumb fucks," says Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg is a weiner.
LinkedIn competitor? (Score:2)
Facebook may be coming out with an office version to take on LinkedIn
If they keep it at that level it might have a chance - generic communication related to your professional life, separate from your personal life.
That said, I don't know how any enterprise besides recruiting firms could embrace LinkedIn. It's just a big resume posting site for headhunters to mine.
nightmare (Score:1)
So people can post pictures of corporate lunches? (Score:3)
Or maybe lolcats with motivational messages from the CEO?
Seriously - F***erberg is just trying to blow more smoke up the backsides of people on Wall Street and try and convince them that he has a plan for "growth". If they were to admit that they have maxed out the number of people, the stock price would plummet.
Who uses LinkedIn? (Score:1)
I've yet to see the usefulness of LinkedIn and I've maintained a profile since 2008. It seems to be a place where people set up a profile when they're looking for a job, but I've yet to notice anyone actually find a job through it. It seems to survive only because it has (somehow) tagged itself as the "business" or "professional" networking site, something that it fails to deliver.
What it does deliver - with some regularity - is compromised services. LinkedIn is the poster-child for why you should NEVE
Re: (Score:2)
It's good for self promotion and too know whats happening in your former colleagues careers and maintain contact. I don't want to have to worry about updated personal email addresses for 300 people every time they change. Yes, I probably contact someone through the site at most twice a year, but it keeps me connected and gives exposure when wanted. I turn off public search-ability when I'm not looking for a job. I've also had at least one friend tell me an interviewer knocked him for not having a well devel
Re: (Score:1)
Perhaps it's an aberration but the job I have now came to me through Linkedin and resulted in a 20% pay jump. I have been contacted by recruiters several times via Linkedin for potential jobs but currently have no interest in leaving. Granted, I am a data point of one, but success there may have more to do with skill sets and specific keywords that recruiters are looking for.
If it exports to odf (Score:1)
Wasn't There a Seinfeld Episode... (Score:2)
...about Worlds Colliding?
Yes, there was: The Pool Guy> [wikipedia.org].