Comment by Justsignedup | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Justsignedup | Hacker News Reader

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I work in a small company where we wanted to use these actively. Reasons they fail:

- Nobody is sitting there waiting for their news feed to update.

- Nobody is posting information there as they would with friends because THEY ARE AT WORK, they worry their boss will see something stupid. This is why memes and other things rarely get posted on work networks.

- Nobody wants to seem like they are slacking off talking on social networks instead of working (even on the work one).

- No memes and other fun related things, nobody cares and nobody checks.

Slack on the other hand was a huge hit. We have a few groups of like minded people who just chat it up. Usually for short bursts. Everyone prefers it over the social network tools. And everyone stays active in it.

A major feature is the notification that someone sent you a direct message (might be important) or sent a message to a room (meh) or sent a message to a muted room (probably not important).

In another comment[1] I mentioned I've found use of a work social network valuable/meaningful - I think part of the reason our observations/experiences are so different is that you work in a small company and I at a large one. Not everyone can be expected to make use of it (much like not everyone uses social media outside of work) so I think for it to succeed the company has to be of sufficient size so that the portion using the social network is enough to provide value.

As for some of your specific points:

> Nobody is sitting there waiting for their news feed to update.

I check the feed in the morning and usually again in the afternoon. It's not expected to be something you stare at for eight hours a day.

> Nobody wants to seem like they are slacking off talking on social networks instead of working (even on the work one).

Think that's more of a company culture issue - our use of it is appreciated/encouraged.

> No memes and other fun related things, nobody cares and nobody checks.

The vast majority of posts are work-related but we have plenty of groups strictly for non-work/fun purposes (e.g. we have a group for discussing video games).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11026577

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