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exzesutikusi…

exvevaranotu…

1. Each forum is based on your email address domain. You have to send them an email from the domain and await a reply back to get first access. That activity can be trapped and monitored by the company.

2. Are these forums HTTPS? If not and people are posting from their company computers, the company could trap all the post activity to the web site as it crosses their network. Remember reading about the secret Wal-Mart internal security group a few weeks ago?

3. No userid’s are stored? How about other info? IP address? Machine specific info? Every machine on a network is identifiable. Even if this info is stored separately, such info can be sued for.

4. Most people write in an identifiable pattern. They use the same words, phasing and make the same spelling mistakes. Company monitors could probably put 2+2 together and get 4 in many cases. The government agencies regularly do this.

5. If you say something threatening, slanderous or libelous, don’t doubt for a moment that a company will consider issuing a subpoena for overhear.us to reveal who the poster is. It has been done before.

6. No sane company is going to pay to join this fun fest. It’s just a waste of potentially productive time to get into a back and forth with “anonymous” posters. Why would they care? How many suck sites are there for major companies already? Do companies seem to care much about these sites? I don’t think so.

If the issue raised is significant enough, it can easily be addressed via internal memo.

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We Will Create Your Very Own Domain Name - http://PowerNamer.com

I’m sure it *could* work in some of those really corporate culture focused, team meeting type companies, but why wouldn’t anybody just slap up an anonymous forum on their own?

I’m not sure if this is their messaging in the article (or the TC writer) but the heavy “share your corporate grumblings” angle speaks more to the employee, which doesn’t make sense since the employer is the one the solution targets. It’d be better to position it as a “tool for managers and executives to give employees a safe, anonymous platform to share ideas, gripes, etc.” for the benefit of the company.

the idea isnt new. it isnt useful. it isnt good either.

blackmailing companies so that they can have a dialog with disgruntled employees who are to chicken to actually raise their legitimate concerns therough legitimate channels will never work.

if someone has a constructive comment to make, i’d dare to say that 98% of companies and managers would like to hear it, good or bad.

this type of environment is ripe for everything anyone wants to say about any company, legitimate or not. mostly not.

this will fail before the term “web 2.0″ gets as tired and played out as my other favorite trend and term “ebusiness”.

LOL

The anonymity thing - aside from the IT department snooping and having pretty much no problem identifying the poster if they want to (presumably you have to send your submissions via your validated corporate email address), people would have to tread very carefully about just what they posted, because airing some specific complaint about your boss may well identify you to him anyway. If the thing took off, it would probably invite all sorts of litigation and disciplinary proceedings, and if it remains something marginal then, well, who cares anyway?

Goes along nicely with brilliant Web 2.0 projects like Twitter. The basic idea is always the same:

“Let’s have a table, and we’ll write a SELECT statement and them convert result into HTML and put some scriptacilous effects… now… let’s do some brain storming: WHAT ARE WE GONNA STICK INTO THE TABLE???”

Twitter sticks “I am scarching my butt while counting pigeons on that tree”
Reddit sticks “I think this story is cool - here is the link”

What else? Any ideas? Investors are waiting!!!

I wish TechCrunch would return to what made it successful - focusing on startups that add value and have a chance at success.

Paul Graham and Y-Combinator, I laud thee for your amazing ability to get press for totally worthless “products”. The revenue model is retarded - no company is going to “pay” and validate such a site.

1. Posting anonymous crap about your company may seem like a cool idea, but the whole reason anonymous things don’t take off is they have no credibility. One could easily flame. There is no reliability or authenticity here. Even the Vault message boards get minimal traction.

2. The business model is total crap too. Y-Combinator doesn’t seem to understand that only a small portion of their companies will get acquired by retarded larger firms (e.g. Conde Nast) and the rest need to generate cash. These cool little projects are totally worthless otherwise. I know Paul Graham hates MBAs, but MBAs do make money. Something Paul Graham seemingly can’t impart to the young college dropouts he likes to fund.

3. There are tons of sites that already do this. Why does this get featured? Is Y-Combinator featured because of its ability to churn out worthless Web 2.0 start-ups that help give TechCrunch more content when there’s nothing worth writing about?

Seriously Nick, you need to stop being so chummy with these guys and being in their pocket.

Also, “It’s hard to tell the person signing your check that their the problem…” should be: “It’s hard to tell the person signing your check that they’re the problem…” I often make the same mistake.

A load of people talk shit about their company and said company performs a scan of the validation emails entering the corporate Exchange server. 12 results found, 12 people in heavy meetings with HR dept and screwed promotional chances.

This site misses the fact that many people who work in corporate environments do so because they like the security. Why go mess that security up by participating in something like this?

Those who want to be bitchy, out-spoken and risk-taking are probably not going to be working as a cube rat.

It is a really good point, but would they go after the entire company if everyone recieved verification e-mails? seems that if everyone gets one, then no-one is trackable. just a thought.

How will it deal with people in a years time who get fired or leave, who verified there email address when they were working there and decide to go on a flame spree?