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Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

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Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your concern. Could you expand here?

I, your competitor, will pay FB for your conversations. I expect we can work out a way to do it that isn't so brazen.

But if that's possible in any way FaceBook and the company paying would be subject to breaking many corporate espionage laws in addition to destroying FaceBook's enterprise business IN ITS ENTIRETY should it be found out.

Seems like an insane amount of risk for such a very tiny reward.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#82

(Throwaway because this includes inside baseball theory and it's not appropriate to comment as my usual self) The technical document https://developers.facebook.com/docs/workplace/account-manag... includes an example to create a new user via an authenticated POST request. Previously facebook had a party line that each human had at most one facebook account (which was in contrast to its competitors where some humans h…

Since we're talking about communication channels, when I was first reading your comment, I read "party line" as in a shared phone line that people used in the early telephone service days. I was definitely confused. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#83
post #30

Considering the backlash against Slack [0], it’ll be interesting to see if Messenger’s model of more “atomic” conversations will create less interruptions. Slack (much like IRC) really contributes to an expectation of continuous conversation throughout the day/night (although not all people deal with it that way). In comparison, Messenger (and other chat apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, etc.) seem to be more designed to…

I guess I do not really understand the backlash at Slack. I think it is more of highlighting broken company cultures. If someone expects an immediate response for any communication does it matter if it is Slack, the phone, your office, your email (plus follow up email and/or phone call)? For me Slack has cut down immensely on people randomly showing up in my office. Just forcing someone to write something down, and t…

I can vouch for it being a major success for my team.

But, like pretty much anything, I could see it being extremely frustrating if forced on a group in an awkward way.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#84
post #76

What has changed about that market that makes this more appealing to businesses than Yammer? OR what about the product makes it more compelling than Yammer?

"More compelling than Yammer" does not strike me as a high bar.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#85
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last place I want to have work related conversations stored is FB servers.

Because you'd rather your work related conversations stored in Slack? Google Hangouts? Skype? GoToMeeting? There are not very many on prem solutions that are very good, so do you not use any of them or is it specifically against Facebook and if the latter why so?

Well my company uses Mattermost in place of slack... on premise, open source, and free.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#86

I don't get the negativity. This is kinda awesome! News feeds will be good to monitor what's going on across many groups / teams, groups can help your team post and communicate across various topics (same with messaging). Honestly the live video streams on demand is kinda huge; this isn't always something easy for companies to do especially large companies but Facebook can pull this off and make it look great for tho…

I try very hard to separate my work life and personal life. This would make me do one of two things: - Stop using facebook for personal purposes and treat it like a more featureful LinkedIn - Quit my job and find another which doesn't require me to give work information to a company which has a trove of my personal information

This is a completely separate account not tied to your personal Facebook account.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#87

As others have said, this feels very similar to Yammer. Microsoft has made a strong pivot to enterprise software over the past couple of years, whereas this feels like Facebook's first foray. Although I don't doubt Facebook's agility, I give other enterprise software companies the advantage sheerly due to their head start.

The benefit Facebook has is hundreds if not thousands of hours of familiarity with their overall interfaces (per user). When I viewed their demo videos, it all looked extremely familiar to me, having used Facebook since about 2006. Whether or not this is the case, it made the design feel good and pleasing.

When I look at Yammer or other services that are totally fresh, I am not at all familiar. I'm totally willing to learn new interfaces and get familiar, but there are a lot of people that would prefer to stick with what they are familiar with.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#88
post #4

I dread one day having to limit job searches to places that don't make me use my private social networking account to do business.

"Workplace" accounts are completely separate, with the exception of an optional link to your personal account to make it easier to log in. To my knowledge, no other data is shared. Your employer owns the data, not Facebook. See https://workplace.fb.com/trust/ .

Will they support generic 2factor auth apps or will I have to use a separate Facebook workplace app to generate auth codes for logging in?

I'm already annoyed that I get my two factor codes from two different apps (one for Facebook, one for everything else), I'd be extra annoyed if it had to be three.

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#89
post #88
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Workplace" accounts are completely separate, with the exception of an optional link to your personal account to make it easier to log in. To my knowledge, no other data is shared. Your employer owns the data, not Facebook. See https://workplace.fb.com/trust/ .

Will they support generic 2factor auth apps or will I have to use a separate Facebook workplace app to generate auth codes for logging in? I'm already annoyed that I get my two factor codes from two different apps (one for Facebook, one for everything else), I'd be extra annoyed if it had to be three.

You can actually use any TOTP app with Facebook already, though the setting is very buried:

https://www.facebook.com/help/358336074294704

Re: Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you'd rather your work related conversations stored in Slack? Google Hangouts? Skype? GoToMeeting? There are not very many on prem solutions that are very good, so do you not use any of them or is it specifically against Facebook and if the latter why so?

Well my company uses Mattermost in place of slack... on premise, open source, and free.

It's also not very good- both the desktop and iOS clients (that I use) are horribly slow to load, clunky, and require multiple (laggy) clicks just to get to a notification of a message. I'd much rather pay for something else, on-prem and open source be damned.
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