Facebook Targets Office Workers With Facebook At Work Service 112
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook unveiled its rumored "at Work" service to a handful of partners today. Facebook at Work puts co-workers into a standalone social network and allows them to share posts and images appropriate for the workplace but looks and acts just like regular Facebook. "We have found that using Facebook as a work tool makes our work day more efficient," Lars Rasmussen, Facebook's director of engineering, tells WIRED. "You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of, and we'd like to make that available to the whole world.""
More stuff done (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we want to data mine all your work correspondence as well.
Re:More stuff done (Score:5, Interesting)
One wrong line of code and all my work-inappropriate stuff will suddenly be thrown in the face of co-workers while they are trying to do their jobs.
I trust this about as far as an ant can spit.
Re:More stuff done (Score:5, Funny)
One wrong line of code and all my work-inappropriate stuff will suddenly be thrown in the face of co-workers while they are trying to do their jobs.
I trust this about as far as an ant can spit.
Actually, some spitting variants of ants can do a pretty good job. The formic acid has some neurotoxins that let them stun their prey.
But, yeah, totally agree.
Re: (Score:2)
That's like blaming the gas tank you forgot to fill for being empty. If you don't want work inappropriate things to go to your work place, pay the fuck attention and don't do work unsafe things at work.
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Nah, I can post whatever I want when I'm at home but should there be a wrong bit of code, the NSFW comment would then be broadcast to my coworkers.
[John]
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I think there's that, and the possibility of mistakes made by lack of visual differentiation. We have a social network at work, but there is no opportunity for confusion - it doesn't look anything like facebook.com. If Facebook and Facebook at Work are visually similar I suspect there will be at least one case where somebody mixes up destinations accidentally.
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I can't spit, but I can drool. :P~
Re:More stuff done (Score:5, Insightful)
They have already proven beyond all doubt there is no good reason to trust them. Why would anyone share the details of their professional life or business contacts with them? For some businesses this will be useful, but for the other 95% this is a terrible idea. It's a security risk that can't even yet be quantified. Data will leak, employees and customers will be poached, Phish will be speared. Nice try Facebook, but seriously fuck off.
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Why would anyone share the details of their professional life or business contacts with them?
the same way they get everyone to share their details of their personal lives...
peer pressue...have you tried to have a social life these days without a stupid FB profile?
i did (for awhile) btw, and i might as well have had "perverted ax-murderer" tattooed on my forehead after telling potential dates i wasn't on FB.
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peer pressue...have you tried to have a social life these days without a stupid FB profile?
Yes, I have, and have found no problems whatsoever doing so. My social life is rich and full and completely Facebook-free. I've never had a date react to my lack of Facebook in a negative way.
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that's great.
you must not be in your mid-40's.
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My God! A good reason to be in one's 60's!
Yipeee! You've made my day!
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Not in my mid 40s. Significantly under it in fact. Have a facebook profile but never use it, I've just never bothered to close it because sometimes I need somewhere to connect candy crush. Never had a problem with my social life.
That said I can acknowledge that Facebook can make group invitations easier.
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I am, actually.
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I'm sure perverted ax-murders love Facebook. The cretins left on Myspace wouldn't be enough of a challenge. I've been with my girl for years and we are still not friends on FB. A social life is possible without FB, but it is hard being the last to find out a loved one died or your niece got married or had a baby. I plan to solve this problem by creating my own social network and allowing others to do the same. Perhaps the potential dates you speak of would have more respect if you could say "I'm not on Face
Re: (Score:2)
What about privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many businesses have outsourced their email to Google or Micro$oft?
Shittons of businesses are that dumb.
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Look how many businesses have outsourced the development of their email servers by using other companies and organization's email software. Whether its exchange server or some FOSS product, unless you wrote the code yourself how can you trust it!
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You misspelled cheap.
(Don't forget the main reason hosted services like this even exist.)
They exist because they beat the insanity of hosting email yourself. They exist because it's stupid to have to transfer your email hosting every time you transfer your web hosting (the other common alternative). They exist because they make doing business easier with less disruption.
Remember, your alternatives are 1. host it yourself, 2. host it with your ISP, 3. host it with your website hosting. It's not immediately obvious why any of those are obvious winners over hosting it with a large well known techn
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How many businesses have outsourced their email to Google or Micro$oft?
Shittons of businesses are that dumb.
Because nobody at Bocephus' ISP and Bait and Tackle Shop could possibly do anything wrong?
Re:What about privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but what businesses are so dumb that they will share their internal communications with another company?
For me it wouldn't even be about "with another company", it would be more along the lines of "look how Facebook has repeatedly fucked over the general end user on privacy issues, are we really going to trust our internal communications to these guys?".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at how Facebook has repeatedly failed to fuck over end users with privacy issues - I'd be tempted to trust them. You pretty much never hear of data being accidentally exposed (due a fault with Facebook rather than user cluelessness) and I've never hea
Re: (Score:2)
You pretty much never hear of data being accidentally exposed
That's because it's intentionally exposed.
and I've never heard of Facebook being hacked.
Do you like to stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la la!". Top result:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/... [cnn.com]
and why do you think they have this?
https://www.facebook.com/white... [facebook.com]
(Hint: Openly selling data, as the user agreed to when they "signed" the terms of service, is *NOT* the same fucking someone over in a manner that would cause a private user with a different TOS concern.)
"Hint" maybe you should read this: .. and after you read that you can research and consider all the ways that Facebook has changed it's privacy settings over the years that constantly expose a wider assortment of information and allow greater data gathe
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
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Is a completely irrelevant page about a security flaw - not about a hack into Facebook's data.
Because it's a damm good idea and best practice? I dunno about you (given your abundantly displayed ignorance), but being proactive and following best practices is a good thing from where I sit.
Re:What about privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much all of the ones that use that new-fangled telephone. Of course, back in the days when the telegraph was the thing, well, pretty much all of them used that too.
And the USPS does, in fact, have a pretty solid metadata look inside most businesses, since they know the destination of pretty much every package and letter sent or received in the USA.
Note that teleconferencing sans Facebook still means the entire datastream is going over wires owned by, well, another business, who can look, or not, at their discretion.....
In other words, the only thing new here is the Facebook logo....
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And the USPS does, in fact, have a pretty solid metadata look inside most businesses, since they know the destination of pretty much every package and letter sent or received in the USA.
How does the USPS see all the Fedex and UPS shipping data? They are the ones doing all the work, the USPS carries a slim share (a sixth) of packages in the US.
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How does the USPS see all the Fedex and UPS shipping data? They are the ones doing all the work, the USPS carries a slim share (a sixth) of packages in the US.
The USPS is getting almost all the small packages handed to them now. UPS and Fedex are left mostly just delivering the big stuff. There are certainly exceptions, but maybe 1/10 of my small packages sent UPS or Fedex are actually delivered by them.
Biased much? (Score:2)
We have found that using Facebook as a work tool makes our work day more efficient," Lars Rasmussen, Facebook's director of engineering
Uhh, yeah. Where's the quote from the director of engineering without the clearly vested interested? I'm suspect thatyou'd be hard-pressed to find a credible DoE who is ready to champion Facebook as a collaboration tool for their business.
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My work tried to have their own work social network thing and it was a disaster because no one wanted to use it and I imagine foisting this on any company would be much the same.
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We have a Facebook group. We use it to share pictures of events sometimes, and light humor, and the occasional bit of interesting tech news, and that's all. Nothing sensitive goes there, ever.
I bet Facebook wants business to use them as a primary channel for work because it will force employees to have Facebook accounts and get into the habit of checking them just to do their job well - even if the company just trials it and later abandons it.
There are many, many people who have not joined our Facebook grou
Oh dang, I'm sorry (Score:4, Insightful)
"I thought I was on our work Facebook, not the regular one. Sorry, it will never happen again."
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I'm wondering if they'll have a "Here comes the Boss" button that suddenly pops up a spreadsheet.
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I'm wondering if they'll have a "Here comes the Boss" button that suddenly pops up a spreadsheet.
It's facebook, for work... Your org will have to opt in. When they do, the "boss button" will be in the spreadsheet app, and it will bring up facebook. Welcome to the future. Let's get some shit done!
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I'm wondering if they'll have a "Here comes the Boss" button that suddenly pops up a spreadsheet.
It's facebook, for work... Your org will have to opt in. When they do, the "boss button" will be in the spreadsheet app, and it will bring up facebook. Welcome to the future. Let's get some shit done!
Hey now, you don't get shit done with Facebook for Work. You get stuff done.
And remember in case anyone was looking for a difference between the two, shit can also be used as a fertilizer.
Situational Awareness (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Then you might have a badly managed workplace?
Re:Situational Awareness (Score:5, Funny)
Then you might have a badly managed workplace?
Doesn't everybody?
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Doesn't everybody?
Fortunately, no.
He is TOTALLY right! (Score:5, Funny)
"We have found that using Facebook as a work tool makes our work day more efficient," Lars Rasmussen, Facebook's director of engineering, tells WIRED. "You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of, and we'd like to make that available to the whole world.""
I am a professional stuff doer. I used to use Microsoft Office but I found I could only crunch numbers, make presentations and write documents.
But do stuff?
Nope.
Then came facebook at work and all the changed!
My boss walked into my cube and asked, "Anon, how do you get all this stuff done so fast!"
I said, "facebook at work."
He was so impressed. He then said, "I tell you. I get THE best workers from Dice.com! Oh, I'm glad to see that you are Slashdot because we all know, to get the latest in IT, software development news, security and everything that a company and worker needs to know, is on Slashdot - a Dicey company!"
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Because if there's one thing Facebook has done, it's made people productive at work.
I'm sure businesses will be happy to have all of their internal communications, memos, files, and more indexed and stored by Facebook.
No, that's the NSA's job.
Didn't you get the memo?
Facebook... (Score:5, Insightful)
...it's like watching legions of people buy Pet Rocks or Cabbage Patch Dolls.
Why? Just, why?
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand it, CPD are appealing psudeobabies for girls to play with. The style may not appeal to you, but I don't get why that's in the same category as a gag gift.
Stop messing with Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
The layout is wrong, on some pages I don't even get a scrollbar and my scrollwheel doesn't work either, what the fuck are you morons doing? Don't experiment with the live servers!
Re:Stop messing with Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
It is not the full beta. Just the tip.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it Slashdot or some new release of Chrome? I now notice I have my google account name on the top of the window and several pages don't render right, including slashdot five minutes ago (although it now looks right).
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Safari 7.1 here, and yes Slashdot does display correctly now, unlike a few minutes ago.
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Relax, it's SlashdotBeta at Work. "You can get more stuff that matters done with SlashdotBeta than any other tool that nerds know of" so we're bringing it to work.
Great (Score:2, Informative)
Once you get your company using, then Facebook can change the privacy policy, and sell your workplace pictures, photos, notes, ect to the highest bidder.
Yo Dawg (Score:1)
I heard you work at Facebook, so we put Facebook on your computer so you can use Facebook while you work at Facebook
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I heard you work at Facebook, so we put Facebook on your computer so you can use Facebook while you work at Facebook
I wonder how Facebook deals with the problem of employees abusing social media during company time?
Would be rather strange to hear management threatening you with termination for not drinking the corporate kool-aid as they continue to build consumer addiction.
Slashvertizement ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if a guy who works at Facebook says it, it must be true.
This article is complete crap.
The use of social media in most companies is a complete joke -- it doesn't add anything of value in most cases, it's just hopping on the latest stupid trend.
Every time I've seen a corporation trying to "leverage social media techologies in-house" my bullshit alarm bells go off, and the end results are under-whelming toys which don't actually provide any business value -- other than giving people badges for participating.
Hell, in at least two cases, I've seen a reduction in business value over what had already been there. Because the social media wasn't useful for anything.
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"Facebook at Work has the same look, apps, and tools as the Facebook we’ve seen before." from TFA
So basically a bunch of random games, quizzes, silly feeds, cat videos, and chat? It doesn't sound very productive or useful.
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Every time I've seen a corporation trying to "leverage social media techologies in-house" my bullshit alarm bells go off
Could it be your bullshit alarm is really sensitive? If you take the user-friendly UI and familiarity of Facebook, Twitter, etc and apply it to internal web applications like a document library, would you not get an easier adoption, and through network effect have more benefits for everyone? Would you not be steering users away from using email for everything?
The way I see it, home computing and enterprise computing influence each other and that's not something that just happened when Facebook became big. T
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You know, oddly enough, I have some experience in content management (at least enough to be dangerous) ... and quite frankly, I'm not sure any of what the Facebook interface does really adds much in the way of business
Less stuff done (Score:2, Informative)
I find that my news feed on Facebook only sorts by popularity. So information that is important, like the death of a friend is hidden under 80 pictures of cats doing stupid stuff. So I expect Facebook at Work will show me lots of "news" about Jenny's promotion, and the death of John's dog, both working i
Our work day is more efficient WITHOUT Facebook (Score:3)
So, it's Yammer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yammer is like Facebook, but for business!
Facebook At Work is like Facebook, but for business!
So Yammer copied Facebook, and Facebook copied Yammer... where's the egg?
Re: (Score:2)
Preferably being thrown at Zuckerschmuck.
Which part of No don't they Get? (Score:1)
No more FB on my iPhone or iPad.
It's like they double down on the p3rV factor each time they do something.
Facebook, Slack, Skype... (Score:3)
Everyone keeps trying to turn the work day into one constant meeting. Good luck with that.
'Cause that's just what Facebook does (Score:2)
"...we'd like to make that available to the whole world."
Yup, they make your 'stuff' available to the world. Even when you don't want them to.
Go on strike if you're struck by this (Score:2)
Really, what happened to Demuhcracy, Freedom? If your workplace get "facebook at work" it will be forced on you and you will be spied on at every move with eternal retention of data by an immensely rich rogue entity.
They will make a strong shadow profile on your other "you" if don't have a personal account, and if you do well you know what happens. Think about what it takes to fully get out of it. You will have to join the french legion to somewhat get rid of your facebook identity and never see your frien
Let's add some "Stuff" to the bottom line... (Score:2)
It's probably a good thing they used the word "stuff" here, as "jack shit" would likely come across as a bit harsh. And honest.
As far as global availability, that's rather arrogant coming from the keeper of the worlds largest database of HUMINT. As if they need more market domination? They're so damn big now governments buy data from them.
Accidentally honesty (Score:1)
Meaning no privacy, and a user authentication system that can be cracked by a blind script kiddie.
I doubt Facebook Inc. meant to be honest but they were so busy trying to monopolize social (online) infrastructure they forgot their weaknesses.
FAIL (Score:3)
You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of
I know of one tool that I - and many, many others - can get shittons of work done with: concentration. Think about / work at a problem. Tinker. Fail, wrong direction, try again. Think, work, tinker. Only necessary precondition: no distractions. Works great. Tiring ? Hell, yeah. Rewarding ? Fuck, yeah.
My Worst Nightmare (Score:3)
Facebook is like the Borg (Score:1)
The media will popularize it like it is in the in thing and moron CEO's that follows whatever the media tells them is the in thing at the time will play along. We have seen these moronic decisions made in mass time and time again.
I have my doubts that it will take this time but who would have thought people would be that stupid to blindly turned over all their contacts to the Facebook-government. Even Zuckerberg got caught mocking his user base in disbelief of how stupid they are.
Alternative to Systemd (Score:2)
"You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of"
Sounds like a candidate. Let's use Facebook at Work for Linux startup management.
Kind of like how we all use the Lifestreams interface for our OS's http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html [yale.edu] with much improved workflow.
If Gary Larson were still cartooning... (Score:2)
... he's update this [blogspot.com] for social media.
The difference is, you actually can make money selling social media snake-oil to companies. For now, at least...
God help us all (Score:2)
I am hoping my hardest hope that my employer won't use this. Right now we're forced to use the thoroughly horrendous Jive app for internal social media "needs", and I fear that Facebook's offering might be better. I fear this because the awfulness of Jive is currently an excellent excuse to avoid using it at all. Replacing it with something less awful might make it more difficult to avoid.
What I want to know (Score:5, Interesting)
is the part about the plan to sell your information to your prospective new employer when you change jobs?
"oh, well, it seems like he wasn't really a team player - only posted once every couple of days. better rescind that job offer."
this is a horrible idea, all the way down. (turtles not included).
Re: (Score:1)
More accurate headlines (Score:1)
"Facebook sniffs corporate pockets as relevancy tumbles"
"Rift-acquiring Facebook distracts stockholders by following Microsoft and Google into the office after VR takes over at CES"
Could have trouble internationally. (Score:3)
"You have a friend request from NSA."
jabber (Score:2)
"You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of, and we'd like to make that available to the whole world."
I dunno, a private jabber server works fine for us and is far more secure than Facebook.
Talking points for your management... (Score:3)
...if they ever consider "Facebook For Work". Mark Zuckerburg is backstabbing sleazebag who has no conscience. Consider how he joined the Winklevoss twins' "Harvard Connection" (aka ConnectU) project, stole their ideas, and delayed the ConnectU project whilst he set up his own project (TheFacebook.com) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org] His attitude to users is one of absolute contempt, and total disregard for their personal data confidentiality. Does your management really want him having access to your internal emails? If it's not blocked by your worksite due to NSFW language, point your management to http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com] Here's a relevant snippet from the article
=== Begin Snippet ===
The technology site Silicon Alley Insider got hold of some of the messages and, this past spring, posted the transcript of a conversation between Zuckerberg and a friend, outlining how he was planning to deal with Harvard Connect:
FRIEND: so have you decided what you are going to do about the websites?
ZUCK: yea I'm going to fuck them
ZUCK: probably in the year
ZUCK: *ear
In another exchange leaked to Silicon Alley Insider, Zuckerberg explained to a friend that his control of Facebook gave him access to any information he wanted on any Harvard student:
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don't know why
ZUCK: they "trust me"
ZUCK: dumb fucks
=== End Snippet ===
Technical question... standalone or hosted by FB? (Score:2)
Is the Facebook At Work app standalone or hosted by FB? If it's hosted by FB, what happens when your corporate internet connection goes down. Internal email would still work, but a "cloud-hosted app"...?
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably it would be hosted by FB. And I suspect for most companies that if the corporate internet connection goes down there are bigger issues than not being able to access corporate facebook.