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I clicked this hopeful that Facebook had made a new product tailored to the needs of an office. Instead it seems like they recently decided that their existing

I clicked this hopeful that Facebook had made a new product tailored to the needs of an office. Instead it seems like they recently decided that their existing product just happens to already be the perfect product for the office and rebranded it. I don't buy this at all, teams don't actually collaborate by sending each other green giraffe stickers.

onewaystreet 11y ago
People who use Slack do.
- jdoliner 11y ago
  To clarify it's not that emoticons can't be part of how people communicate at work. I just couldn't really believe those exchanges they were showing there. Slack puts the whole conversation right in front of you and makes link and searching really comfortable. The fb share box really isn't meant for that.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Slack charges. When is "Work" going to end up like Parse?
  - carb 11y ago
    Facebook At Work is not a free service.
  - benatkin 11y ago
    Maybe they killed Parse because it wasn't all about keeping people in their walled garden, and enabled people to duplicate features of facebook. It could be in line with what they did with FBML & facebook apps.
  - dsl 11y ago
    My guess is "Work" is a ploy to get Facebook un-blocked by corporate firewalls. The business functionality has already existed (since FB uses its own platform internally), so its comparatively minor in engineering effort.
    - themartorana 11y ago
      Ha! Nice theory! No seriously, that's pretty brilliant.
      - Pharaoh2 11y ago
        Except that it's on a different domain and won't affect the facebook block.
        harigov 11y ago
        In fact, this would actually force people to block FB. The worst thing to happen would be for someone to post important information related to company on their personal feed by mistake. If they can login to both the accounts, this is very much possible. Unless, of course, FB for work looks dramatically different from original FB. I don't know, I never tried.
    - greyman 11y ago
      I work for a Large Corp., and FB is not blocked. What is blocked are services like dropbox or google drive. But I can't imagine the security department would allow publishing work-related information to other company cloud.
Alex3917 11y ago
This seems like the kind of safe and boring product you'd make while trying not to get fired before your options vest. As they'd say in the wine industry, "it's well made."
johnrob 11y ago
They're probably thinking that since so many people are familiar with facebook's UX, it can become the baseline for an office collaboration tool (one with a very small learning curve).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
encoderer 11y ago
Facebook actually uses Facebook heavily internally. Groups, calendars, etc. It's certainly not a mandate, it's used because it works for them.
- Johnny555 11y ago
  There's no mandate in my company that users stick with Google Apps for calendars, groups, document sharing, etc. But any department that went with their own tool for any of that would be their Island that wouldn't interoperate with the rest of the office. That doesn't mean that Google Apps is the best tool, or even that it works well for everyone, but it means that people are willing to put up with a less than perfect solution that's integrated with the rest of the company.
  - dmichulke 11y ago
    So a kind of vendor lockin. Of course in the above FB scenario this is not a problem because they're the vendor.
- jnpatel 11y ago
  I'd argue that they consciously make it work for them internally, despite lots of pain points solved by other tools better suited for the job. For example, Zuck says he runs the company via Messenger - but a chat tool without selective muting/@mentions (or equivalent) is bound to be messy at the scale at which he's working. Similarly, Facebook's group chat isn't the best archival tool, nor does it support features like merging posts or transferring them from one group to another.
  - wyclif 11y ago
    You're assuming that Facebook internal is the same, feature by feature, as commercial Facebook. I promise you it isn't.
    - scott_s 11y ago
      If they turned that version into a service that could run on-premises, inside a company's network, then I think they could have a real chance at becoming the communication and coordination medium for most companies.
mliker 11y ago
You're right, teams don't collaborate by sending each other green giraffe stickers. I don't know how you got that idea in the first place. If your team only sends green giraffe stickers to each, you should probably leave your company.
SonicSoul 11y ago
I agree, the only thing I can think of that this could be useful for is posting photos from last christmas party or collaborating on the next outing
b34r 11y ago
My team sends gifs all the time in Slack
louhike 11y ago
A lot of companies use Booster or Yammer, so there is already a market for that. It can be interesting to share some technical news or to organize social events (pizza day for the office, hiking week-end). It can be a nice additional source of revenue for Facebook.
bertil 11y ago
People collaborate using stickers (or memes) quite intensively in the last… three companies I worked for (very different from each other). Some are casual references to insiders jokes, but all were generally clear enough to get the point across and funny enough to soften the blow of disagreeing. Positive reactions with the humour or intensity of an over-excited gif are great to convey not just a green light, but support from higher-ups. There was a clear bias towards younger people in using those appropriately and consistently.

onewaystreet 11y ago

People who use Slack do.

jdoliner 11y ago
To clarify it's not that emoticons can't be part of how people communicate at work. I just couldn't really believe those exchanges they were showing there. Slack puts the whole conversation right in front of you and makes link and searching really comfortable. The fb share box really isn't meant for that.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
Slack charges. When is "Work" going to end up like Parse?
- carb 11y ago
  Facebook At Work is not a free service.
- benatkin 11y ago
  Maybe they killed Parse because it wasn't all about keeping people in their walled garden, and enabled people to duplicate features of facebook. It could be in line with what they did with FBML & facebook apps.
- dsl 11y ago
  My guess is "Work" is a ploy to get Facebook un-blocked by corporate firewalls. The business functionality has already existed (since FB uses its own platform internally), so its comparatively minor in engineering effort.
  - themartorana 11y ago
    Ha! Nice theory! No seriously, that's pretty brilliant.
    - Pharaoh2 11y ago
      Except that it's on a different domain and won't affect the facebook block.
      - harigov 11y ago
        In fact, this would actually force people to block FB. The worst thing to happen would be for someone to post important information related to company on their personal feed by mistake. If they can login to both the accounts, this is very much possible. Unless, of course, FB for work looks dramatically different from original FB. I don't know, I never tried.
  - greyman 11y ago
    I work for a Large Corp., and FB is not blocked. What is blocked are services like dropbox or google drive. But I can't imagine the security department would allow publishing work-related information to other company cloud.

Alex3917 11y ago

This seems like the kind of safe and boring product you'd make while trying not to get fired before your options vest. As they'd say in the wine industry, "it's well made."

johnrob 11y ago

They're probably thinking that since so many people are familiar with facebook's UX, it can become the baseline for an office collaboration tool (one with a very small learning curve).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

encoderer 11y ago

Facebook actually uses Facebook heavily internally. Groups, calendars, etc. It's certainly not a mandate, it's used because it works for them.

Johnny555 11y ago
There's no mandate in my company that users stick with Google Apps for calendars, groups, document sharing, etc. But any department that went with their own tool for any of that would be their Island that wouldn't interoperate with the rest of the office. That doesn't mean that Google Apps is the best tool, or even that it works well for everyone, but it means that people are willing to put up with a less than perfect solution that's integrated with the rest of the company.
- dmichulke 11y ago
  So a kind of vendor lockin. Of course in the above FB scenario this is not a problem because they're the vendor.
jnpatel 11y ago
I'd argue that they consciously make it work for them internally, despite lots of pain points solved by other tools better suited for the job. For example, Zuck says he runs the company via Messenger - but a chat tool without selective muting/@mentions (or equivalent) is bound to be messy at the scale at which he's working. Similarly, Facebook's group chat isn't the best archival tool, nor does it support features like merging posts or transferring them from one group to another.
- wyclif 11y ago
  You're assuming that Facebook internal is the same, feature by feature, as commercial Facebook. I promise you it isn't.
  - scott_s 11y ago
    If they turned that version into a service that could run on-premises, inside a company's network, then I think they could have a real chance at becoming the communication and coordination medium for most companies.

mliker 11y ago

You're right, teams don't collaborate by sending each other green giraffe stickers. I don't know how you got that idea in the first place. If your team only sends green giraffe stickers to each, you should probably leave your company.

SonicSoul 11y ago

I agree, the only thing I can think of that this could be useful for is posting photos from last christmas party or collaborating on the next outing

b34r 11y ago

My team sends gifs all the time in Slack

louhike 11y ago

A lot of companies use Booster or Yammer, so there is already a market for that. It can be interesting to share some technical news or to organize social events (pizza day for the office, hiking week-end). It can be a nice additional source of revenue for Facebook.

bertil 11y ago

People collaborate using stickers (or memes) quite intensively in the last… three companies I worked for (very different from each other). Some are casual references to insiders jokes, but all were generally clear enough to get the point across and funny enough to soften the blow of disagreeing. Positive reactions with the humour or intensity of an over-excited gif are great to convey not just a green light, but support from higher-ups. There was a clear bias towards younger people in using those appropriately and consistently.