11 ms·

Facebook at Work is launching next month

57 points by nedsma 10y ago

wilmo 10y ago
Is Facebook trying to be slack now?
- spdionis 10y ago
  Slack is for teams. Facebook at work is intended as a company-wide tool for bigger organizations, especially for everything non-development related.
- basch 10y ago
  Facebook has been working on this since before June 2014. It has been in a private beta for 2 years. https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/facebook-at-work/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/facebook-at-work/
a_imho 10y ago
I don't really see a point, partly because social and work don't mix in my dictionary, partly because I consider Enterprise Communication a solved problem. What is the incentive to move away from e.g. an already integrated Atlassian stack? Maybe it can be an option for new companies? It is hard to tell without the pricing information.
- codingmyway 10y ago
  Exactly, social and work don't mix. Most want them kept well apart. No way I'm letting FB link my work with my social lives and no way I'd trust them not to. There is always the risk of them buying LinkedIn but people aren't going to make it easy.
  - wormseed 10y ago
    "You just create a new Facebook at Work account to connect with coworkers. This account is separate from your personal Facebook but works in similar ways." (https://work.fb.com https://work.fb.com)
    - pmlnr 10y ago
      Riiiiight.
      - dingaling 10y ago
        They absolutely will not mix personal and work Facebooks. Plenty of companies have blocked [www|m].facebook.com at the firewall, for reasons of productivity and data protection. Facebook-the-company will not jeopardise the chances of adoption of this product by doing anything that will make work.facebook.com fall foul of a similar fate. Pity they didn't just call it Workbook, then we wouldn't have had all this confusion. Or Workface :)
        pmlnr 10y ago
        Mix? No. Share? Of course they will.
  - supercoder 10y ago
    You haven't looked at it at all have you ?
  - pmlnr 10y ago
    When you work at a company you don't really have a word after a HiPPO decision.
- evgen 10y ago
  Can't really tell if you are serious if you are claiming "enterprise communication is a solved problem" (it isn't) and in the next sentence mention an Atlassian stack. Funny you should mention Altassian though, because while everyone is going to compare this to Slack, IMHO it is second-tier services with shitty UX like Atlassian who are going to get hosed by FB@work.
  - a_imho 10y ago
    Most companies I worked at used Atlassian products, but feel free to use any other services as examples. Personally I think the FB UX is one of the worst out there, but each to their own I guess. Well, ymmv of course, but for me the technical aspects were solved by email long ago and imo dysfunctional communication mostly a human problem. It is very hard / impossible to fix pebkac with technology and from what I reading FB@W does not bring anything new to the table in that regard.
  - csydas 10y ago
    I would agree that it's not "solved", but I do think that there are many non-paid solutions that will satisfy the majority of small to medium businesses. Slack-likes seemed to be pretty popular for awhile, and most are feature competitive as far as the internal communication aspect that Work at Facebook, sans the video chat. I'm a little torn on this as the product itself does seem like a natural use for Facebook's platform, and I'm mildly surprised they didn't do this soon. On the same note, that they didn't do this sooner makes it feel a bit more "me too", and I'm not confident the adoption rate will be strong enough to justify it going forward. Since the UI is just a mildly tweaked version of vanilla Facebook, I wonder if they had internal numbers showing that people were already doing this to justify the commitment, or if they're just hoping it will stick. I honestly feel the Facebook UI is just way too cramped and smooshed for being all that productive with, but I am also not an avid facebook user, so my opinion may be worthless. (I think VK's layout is a lot cleaner, for example...) Right now I'm not convinced Facebook is offering enough to convince any existing users to migrate. I'm not sure it offers anything enticing over other Slack-likes to really convince users to pick it over other services. Though I appreciate them separating the two types of accounts, I think this just raises the barrier of entry, which was already pretty high compared to others.
CaptainZapp 10y ago
Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting traction with corporate customers with the most atrocious privacy record of just about any company.
- fwn 10y ago
  They did not have any breaches, did they? I'm curious what you are referring to.
  - grabeh 10y ago
    He is referring to Facebook's record in relation to the use of user information, not a data breach by Facebook.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  There are a lot of comms that aren't really sensitive, no? Event organization, menu updates, building maintenance updates etc. You're right that it can't really swallow everything, but it actually helps (users) that it can't. It relegates FB to a casual thing and not a real business tool. Whether or not this is good for Facebook is a different matter, and I agree with your implication that it probably isn't.
  - weavie 10y ago
    With enough of this insensitive data a well tuned ai could easily determine a lot of info about the company. Less events organised than previous years, or organised at cheaper venues, coupled with cheaper meals and less building maintenance could very well imply the company is facing hardship and are cutting costs. Time to start showing recruitment agency ads to the staff members personal facebook accounts.
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      Far richer and far more actionable data would be accessible from employees' personal accounts anyways.
nedsma 10y ago
This seems particularly well suited to non-IT-development workflows, like those in marketing and sales agencies, various organizations that already intensively utilize FB for their businesses by further providing a seamless integration between workplace activities and public/customer related ones. What about webhooks, e.g. for CI and Github related processes, or about bot support?
- tdkl 10y ago
  > like those in marketing and sales agencies, various organizations that already intensively utilize FB for their businesses So basically same bullshit selling industry related to ads as Facebook.
wodenokoto 10y ago
Most companies don't have a code repository or file bug reports, yet almost every comment seems to talk about this. Most companies need a platform where employees are registered, can communicate and can be looked up, and preferably a platform that employees also use. Facebook has shown itself to be a platform people like to use, a platform that works well on desktop and mobile, can do users, groups, schedules etc. I can see why it might be good for a lot of companies that have an unused custom Intranet with an empty bulletin board.
hitr 10y ago
Facebook might be eyeing the same crowd which is using Yammer or saleforce's chatter offering.I think if they start with a free tier like yammer and then go from there,lot of people might start using it as people are already familiar with Facebook.In my company i don't see people using yammer although it is heavily publicized. I think facebook has a better chance of becoming social network for work than yammer or chatter!
whitecarpet 10y ago
Facebook feels a bit lost, rushing from one opportunity to the next. Remember the Facebook Messenger with bot api beginning of the year? Zuck created a big buzz and promised a soon to come bot marketplace, which haven't launched yet. And now FB for work? FB's DNA is about anything but work.
- Xunxi 10y ago
  Most organizations would rather keep staff away from Facebook as long as they're not in the social media marketing enclave. The temptation of drifting unto your personal Facebook account instead of Facebook for work makes this a laughable proposition but there's always a customer for every product no matter how shitty it is.
- wastedhours 10y ago
  As true as that might be, the lead up to FB@Work has been a lot longer than for other services from them, they've had a fairly robust alpha/beta test period with a number of organisations.
GrumpyNl 10y ago
Best idea ever. Lets use Facebook for our business conversations and pay them for that service as a bonus. If you bring this up as an option in a business conversation, i don't want to work with you.
- eli 10y ago
  Because you... don't like Facebook? Ok. But I don't get your hostility.
  - GrumpyNl 10y ago
    They will have access to your business conversations. You have literally someone from facebook taking notes.
    - eli 10y ago
      Do you feel that way about Gmail too? I respect the opinion but it's definitely in the minority. The TOS will no doubt prevent them from using any proprietary data or "note taking"
    - jmcdiesel 10y ago
      Im sure there is "Literally" some guy with a notepad watching FB@Work Conversations... literally...
meira 10y ago
They are going to fail terrible.
josefresco 10y ago
"It should find onboarding users easier than many SaaS tools since people will already have a login, password, and know how to use it. " Does that mean employees sign into Facebook at Work with their personal Facebook credentials? That doesn't seem to make sense, but then why/how is the Facebook registration process better?
- conradfr 10y ago
  No, it uses your work credentials and your account is created for you. We have it at work and I was skeptical at first but it's not that bad. There is no concept of friends but you can follow specific people. Mainly it's based on groups so in the end it's like a stripped down Facebook that acts as a glorified front-end for mailing-lists. I don't know how much they (will?) charge by user though.
  - josefresco 10y ago
    If "corporate" or someone in the company sets accounts up ahead of time, how does Facebook have any advantage in this space? That same process would be possible with any software...
aws_ls 10y ago
"Facebook will just have to conquer the stigma that it’s for fooling around, not getting work done." This. After offering people, at work, trillions of hours of entertainment, now its going to help make people more productive. But it will have a huge brand problem. Facebook has become an adjective for people slacking it out. Example, an irritated spouse "you spent the entire day on Facebook". Many IT companies' firewalls has Facebook at the top of the banned sites, during office hours. All said, it surely can do it. But if it succeeds, it will be a bit like a porn site also deciding to become a MOOC and succeeding at it.
themihai 10y ago
I thought there is already a 'facebook at work' named Yammer. Not that I found it useful in small start-ups but it makes sense in large organisations.
- rm445 10y ago
  Not just Yammer but Sharepoint, Sway and Delve. For companies that are bought into the whole Office 365 thing, there's actually a pretty comprehensive 'company social network' offering.

57 points by nedsma 10y ago

wilmo 10y ago

Is Facebook trying to be slack now?

spdionis 10y ago
Slack is for teams. Facebook at work is intended as a company-wide tool for bigger organizations, especially for everything non-development related.
basch 10y ago
Facebook has been working on this since before June 2014. It has been in a private beta for 2 years. https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/facebook-at-work/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/facebook-at-work/

a_imho 10y ago

I don't really see a point, partly because social and work don't mix in my dictionary, partly because I consider Enterprise Communication a solved problem. What is the incentive to move away from e.g. an already integrated Atlassian stack? Maybe it can be an option for new companies? It is hard to tell without the pricing information.

codingmyway 10y ago
Exactly, social and work don't mix. Most want them kept well apart. No way I'm letting FB link my work with my social lives and no way I'd trust them not to. There is always the risk of them buying LinkedIn but people aren't going to make it easy.
- wormseed 10y ago
  "You just create a new Facebook at Work account to connect with coworkers. This account is separate from your personal Facebook but works in similar ways." (https://work.fb.com https://work.fb.com)
  - pmlnr 10y ago
    Riiiiight.
    - dingaling 10y ago
      They absolutely will not mix personal and work Facebooks. Plenty of companies have blocked [www|m].facebook.com at the firewall, for reasons of productivity and data protection. Facebook-the-company will not jeopardise the chances of adoption of this product by doing anything that will make work.facebook.com fall foul of a similar fate. Pity they didn't just call it Workbook, then we wouldn't have had all this confusion. Or Workface :)
      - pmlnr 10y ago
        Mix? No. Share? Of course they will.
- supercoder 10y ago
  You haven't looked at it at all have you ?
- pmlnr 10y ago
  When you work at a company you don't really have a word after a HiPPO decision.
evgen 10y ago
Can't really tell if you are serious if you are claiming "enterprise communication is a solved problem" (it isn't) and in the next sentence mention an Atlassian stack. Funny you should mention Altassian though, because while everyone is going to compare this to Slack, IMHO it is second-tier services with shitty UX like Atlassian who are going to get hosed by FB@work.
- a_imho 10y ago
  Most companies I worked at used Atlassian products, but feel free to use any other services as examples. Personally I think the FB UX is one of the worst out there, but each to their own I guess. Well, ymmv of course, but for me the technical aspects were solved by email long ago and imo dysfunctional communication mostly a human problem. It is very hard / impossible to fix pebkac with technology and from what I reading FB@W does not bring anything new to the table in that regard.
- csydas 10y ago
  I would agree that it's not "solved", but I do think that there are many non-paid solutions that will satisfy the majority of small to medium businesses. Slack-likes seemed to be pretty popular for awhile, and most are feature competitive as far as the internal communication aspect that Work at Facebook, sans the video chat. I'm a little torn on this as the product itself does seem like a natural use for Facebook's platform, and I'm mildly surprised they didn't do this soon. On the same note, that they didn't do this sooner makes it feel a bit more "me too", and I'm not confident the adoption rate will be strong enough to justify it going forward. Since the UI is just a mildly tweaked version of vanilla Facebook, I wonder if they had internal numbers showing that people were already doing this to justify the commitment, or if they're just hoping it will stick. I honestly feel the Facebook UI is just way too cramped and smooshed for being all that productive with, but I am also not an avid facebook user, so my opinion may be worthless. (I think VK's layout is a lot cleaner, for example...) Right now I'm not convinced Facebook is offering enough to convince any existing users to migrate. I'm not sure it offers anything enticing over other Slack-likes to really convince users to pick it over other services. Though I appreciate them separating the two types of accounts, I think this just raises the barrier of entry, which was already pretty high compared to others.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting traction with corporate customers with the most atrocious privacy record of just about any company.

fwn 10y ago
They did not have any breaches, did they? I'm curious what you are referring to.
- grabeh 10y ago
  He is referring to Facebook's record in relation to the use of user information, not a data breach by Facebook.
ethanbond 10y ago
There are a lot of comms that aren't really sensitive, no? Event organization, menu updates, building maintenance updates etc. You're right that it can't really swallow everything, but it actually helps (users) that it can't. It relegates FB to a casual thing and not a real business tool. Whether or not this is good for Facebook is a different matter, and I agree with your implication that it probably isn't.
- weavie 10y ago
  With enough of this insensitive data a well tuned ai could easily determine a lot of info about the company. Less events organised than previous years, or organised at cheaper venues, coupled with cheaper meals and less building maintenance could very well imply the company is facing hardship and are cutting costs. Time to start showing recruitment agency ads to the staff members personal facebook accounts.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    Far richer and far more actionable data would be accessible from employees' personal accounts anyways.

nedsma 10y ago

This seems particularly well suited to non-IT-development workflows, like those in marketing and sales agencies, various organizations that already intensively utilize FB for their businesses by further providing a seamless integration between workplace activities and public/customer related ones. What about webhooks, e.g. for CI and Github related processes, or about bot support?

tdkl 10y ago
> like those in marketing and sales agencies, various organizations that already intensively utilize FB for their businesses So basically same bullshit selling industry related to ads as Facebook.

wodenokoto 10y ago

Most companies don't have a code repository or file bug reports, yet almost every comment seems to talk about this. Most companies need a platform where employees are registered, can communicate and can be looked up, and preferably a platform that employees also use. Facebook has shown itself to be a platform people like to use, a platform that works well on desktop and mobile, can do users, groups, schedules etc. I can see why it might be good for a lot of companies that have an unused custom Intranet with an empty bulletin board.

hitr 10y ago

Facebook might be eyeing the same crowd which is using Yammer or saleforce's chatter offering.I think if they start with a free tier like yammer and then go from there,lot of people might start using it as people are already familiar with Facebook.In my company i don't see people using yammer although it is heavily publicized. I think facebook has a better chance of becoming social network for work than yammer or chatter!

whitecarpet 10y ago

Facebook feels a bit lost, rushing from one opportunity to the next. Remember the Facebook Messenger with bot api beginning of the year? Zuck created a big buzz and promised a soon to come bot marketplace, which haven't launched yet. And now FB for work? FB's DNA is about anything but work.

Xunxi 10y ago
Most organizations would rather keep staff away from Facebook as long as they're not in the social media marketing enclave. The temptation of drifting unto your personal Facebook account instead of Facebook for work makes this a laughable proposition but there's always a customer for every product no matter how shitty it is.
wastedhours 10y ago
As true as that might be, the lead up to FB@Work has been a lot longer than for other services from them, they've had a fairly robust alpha/beta test period with a number of organisations.

GrumpyNl 10y ago

Best idea ever. Lets use Facebook for our business conversations and pay them for that service as a bonus. If you bring this up as an option in a business conversation, i don't want to work with you.

eli 10y ago
Because you... don't like Facebook? Ok. But I don't get your hostility.
- GrumpyNl 10y ago
  They will have access to your business conversations. You have literally someone from facebook taking notes.
  - eli 10y ago
    Do you feel that way about Gmail too? I respect the opinion but it's definitely in the minority. The TOS will no doubt prevent them from using any proprietary data or "note taking"
  - jmcdiesel 10y ago
    Im sure there is "Literally" some guy with a notepad watching FB@Work Conversations... literally...

meira 10y ago

They are going to fail terrible.

josefresco 10y ago

"It should find onboarding users easier than many SaaS tools since people will already have a login, password, and know how to use it. " Does that mean employees sign into Facebook at Work with their personal Facebook credentials? That doesn't seem to make sense, but then why/how is the Facebook registration process better?

conradfr 10y ago
No, it uses your work credentials and your account is created for you. We have it at work and I was skeptical at first but it's not that bad. There is no concept of friends but you can follow specific people. Mainly it's based on groups so in the end it's like a stripped down Facebook that acts as a glorified front-end for mailing-lists. I don't know how much they (will?) charge by user though.
- josefresco 10y ago
  If "corporate" or someone in the company sets accounts up ahead of time, how does Facebook have any advantage in this space? That same process would be possible with any software...

aws_ls 10y ago

"Facebook will just have to conquer the stigma that it’s for fooling around, not getting work done." This. After offering people, at work, trillions of hours of entertainment, now its going to help make people more productive. But it will have a huge brand problem. Facebook has become an adjective for people slacking it out. Example, an irritated spouse "you spent the entire day on Facebook". Many IT companies' firewalls has Facebook at the top of the banned sites, during office hours. All said, it surely can do it. But if it succeeds, it will be a bit like a porn site also deciding to become a MOOC and succeeding at it.

themihai 10y ago

I thought there is already a 'facebook at work' named Yammer. Not that I found it useful in small start-ups but it makes sense in large organisations.

rm445 10y ago
Not just Yammer but Sharepoint, Sway and Delve. For companies that are bought into the whole Office 365 thing, there's actually a pretty comprehensive 'company social network' offering.