Now We’re Not Talking: Telstra Bans Facebook

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

1. Internet Evangelist
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 1:33 am

   When we say Siemens has 6000 employees using facebook, it’s a good idea to compare Siemens employees using LinkedIn for business networking.

   Facebook for Business networking? I have my doubts

2. Metagg
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 1:34 am

   Hey Duncan, I don’t want to rain on your Facebook parade or anything but Siemens has like half a million employees, and I don’t think that because 0.0125 % of their work force is using it they are suddenly going to adopt it as the defacto platform for their corporate communications, regardless of what Robert Scoble thinks.

   As for a company banning Facebook, Techcrunch might care, I might care, but the corporate world as a whole probably could care less even though it is “growing in worldwide popularity as a corporate tool”

   Also, did they ban them from using it only at work? Or at home also? Because I could see them banning it at work as it is a major time sink, but banning it at home too is a little much…-Metagg

3. Duncan Riley
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 1:40 am

   Internet Evangelist
   I would compare it..if I had the numbers

   Metagg
   If they banned LinkedIn I’d think it was stupid as well, like many things Telstra does…I was being well behaved with the post

4. Michael
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 1:54 am

   Is it just me or is this website (and Duncan’s posts in particular) starting to sound like one big advertisement for Facebook? Very fishy…

   Sorry to disappoint the Facebook fanboys, but Facebook is NOT the next Microsoft, they’re having a hard enough time trying to be the next MySpace.

   As a corporate tool, forget about it. Who really wants to mix their work life with their social life? How’s it going to look when your client or boss checks your profile only to see what your drinking buddys have posted on your “wall”. What self-respecting organization is going to entrust their enterprise personnel management and communications to a 3rd party like Facebook? The potential for leaked information, NDA violations, and other corporate bloopers is enormous. I don’t think any company wants to expose themselves to that kind of risk.

5. Duncan Riley
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:02 am

   Michael
   I can’t remember the last post I wrote about Facebook, but it certainly wasn’t this week from what I can remember. As for being blind Facebook fan boys, if you check the archives I’ve question Facebook a number of times. We also don’t cover the dozens of Facebook apps that are launched daily like a number of other sites do, if anything we under report Facebook news

6. Rodney Rumford
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:03 am

   I always find it interesting when companies try to ban/curb/control users online behavior.

   I remember years ago when IM was considered a terrible thing (and time waste) in many companies for years and just a few days ago I read in the WSJ that companies are embracing IM in the workplace… duh

   In regards to facebook. The genie is out of the bottle and you can’t stuff it back in. Companies don’t want you to blog, podcast, etc… time for business to wake up… they have no control.

   Control is an old school mentality and it will bite them in the ass… in ways such as this exact blog post… they now have a pr issue on their hands.. It makes me laugh.

   To:Internet Evangelist: facebook for business networking: ABSOLUTELY!

7. Metagg
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:16 am

   Hey Duncan, I hope you don’t think I was hating on your post.

   My goal was to put into perspective the smallness of 6000 of Siemens’ employees using Facebook.

   It is kind of like when people read something about Google and comment that whatever Google is doing is another nail in the coffin for Microsoft (must be a lot of nails in that coffin!) while failing to realize that Microsoft is many times larger than Google and makes money hand over fist.

   Anyway, keep up the good work…-Metagg

8. Internet Evangelist
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:36 am

   I see this comment 8 on almost every facebook related post on Techcrunch.

9. Jono
   

   July 27th, 2007 at 2:49 am

   Oh well, it would be a mistake to credit Telstra with any kind of intelligence or wisdom, especially regarding the internet anyway….

10. Peter Cunningham
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    Very funny - a mocked up interview. Do you work for ConnectU by any chance?

    Facebook ‘as is’ will never be a business network while people can plaster the place with photos of their friends naked and drunk. No business network asks you on page one - are you married, single, looking for men, looking for women or anything I can get!

    As for Siemens - it is a German Company! I imagine that there is a ’small’ network in Germany that has more Siemens staff than Linked’in

    I know we have a good few Siemens guys on Viadeo!

    Peter Cunningham
    Viadeo

11. Paul B
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 3:52 am

    Duncan, at the end of the day employees are there to work. Whilst it’s important to promote an employee friendly workplace you can’t argue that social network apps like Facebook and MySpace are unproductive to the corporate environment (i.e. they do nothing, in the ‘regular use’ of the app, to bring $$s in). You can whinge about Telstra all you like (and I know you’re doing it because its a monopolistic corporate that we love to hate) but at the end of the day plenty of companies, both big and small, have banned the same sites. Damn, I was sitting in a meeting at Price Waterhouse and Coopers just the other day and watched one of their secretaries trolling MySpace for 2 straight hours.. how is that acceptable?

    As for Facebook being the corporate intranet of the future? I think you’d find many CTO’s that would beg to differ.

12. Michael
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 4:00 am

    Duncan,

    http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/facebook/

    I see 6 posts in the last 8 days, but I’ll admit at least half of it is newsworthy.

    All ribbing aside, I still think its way too early to start crowning Facebook as the next big business tool. I can certainly see the value, but a company like LinkedIn just seems to fit the bill so much better.

    Since you brought up the MS reference first, here’s something to consider - Microsoft is probably the most trusted name in the business world. What’s to stop Microsoft from building their own “enterprise grade” social network and integrating it with Outlook & Office? If they get it right, it could be a killer app…

13. Churchill
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 4:19 am

    Comment 8 is getting very annoying and blatently isn’t written by Zuckerberg.

    Not quite sure how this article is newsworthy - a company banning it’s employees for wasting time at work - not really news. Guess what, they’ve also banned hotmail, pornography, MySpace, etc - why does Facebook get so much attention all of a sudden (as great as it is)!

14. Raj
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 4:36 am

    Duncan..I am banning Facebook in my kitchen.Kindly report the same in techcrunch.

15. Wes
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 4:49 am

    I don’t see anything wrong with Telstra banning Facebook or any site for that matter. This happens all the time with companies limiting access to a number of sites depending on the amount of traffic going to those sites without much benefit for the company and Telstra has done a similar thing I think.

    People are there to work and not surf the net and therefore this decision wouldn’t surprise me. I wonder how much extra money Telstra would gain if its staff were to be allowed to access Facebook during working hours - that’s the amount of money they will lose if any.

    This is hardly news to me.

16. RG
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 5:45 am

    Are you just plain retarded or something!!!!

    Get off the ohh Facebook bandwagon!!!

    you call yourself a fucking journalist!!!!!!
    Dude, there are real technological stories to report!

    Hey, honestly do they pay u to sing?

17. Justin
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 6:46 am

    “Facebook could well become an substitute for Siemen’s corporate intranet.”

    Oh my god have you guys never worked in a corporation?

    This site is funnier than uncov.

18. Fake Mark Zuckerberg
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 6:56 am

    Churchill my email ID is mrkzuckerberg@yahoo.com

19. Adrian keys
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 7:15 am

    @Raj

    “Duncan..I am banning Facebook in my kitchen.Kindly report the same in techcrunch”.

    That is just plain funny. Yes, seriously Duncan…for the sheer distraction of FaceBook in the office, I see this being hardly news that a company would choose Telstra’s route.

    There are lots of other more appropriate business networking applications you know….

20. Geeman
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    God! For god sake stop beating the Facebook drum. Facebook doesn’t feed you.

    I’m young person who declined to join Facebook or myspace or hi5 or any useless and meaningless social networking site. These sites are for people with no direction in their life or who don’t have close friends and have insecurities and wants the whole to notice them.

    Facebook is equivalent to slums. Let’s keep Facebook out of the corporate world.

21. Allen Stern
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 7:21 am

    In case anyone is interested, I did cancel the charter flight to AU to investigate:
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....es-to-work

22. Churchill
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 7:53 am

    “Mark Zuckerberg” - what sort of proof is that of who you are, and what are we supposed to do - email you and get a reply which wil be proof?

    And why would Mark Zuckerberg use yahoo when Facebook no doubt have their own email system for Facebook staff?

23. Saagar
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    Well, having a facebook business client which is separate from facebook itself might be a better idea. If the companies allow these social networking sites then they will never know if half of their productive time is lost in business networking on facebook or social networking on facebook !! I don’t see what’s wrong in a company’s decision to increase their productivity..

    And all you guys who are commenting Duncan on covering Facebook, here is my 2 cents. With such a huge editorial team, I guess, Mike has probably entrusted the responsibility of following up on a particular topic for each writer. If it was told to him to follow up Facebook and popularize it, and show companies which ban it in bad light, what can he do!! I guess with a large number of great posts from TC, some of these posts can be ignored instead of being ridiculed. Remember the 80-20 rule…

24. whawha
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 8:53 am

    the question people should be asking, which all IT departments in the next ten years will be asking…why the %##$% do we let employees have unfettered access to the internet from their desks?

    i’m sure people will come up with all sorts of reasons why having a support tech staffer spend three hours a day on facebook adds value for those who “get it”, but in reality its just three hours spent not working.

    i would wager from my desk that most employees waste 50% or more of the day fucking around on the web. why not just give them premium cable TV at the desk too? lets not invalidate the value created while watching sopranos reruns.

25. Nick
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:00 am

    Not a lot of huge companies allow access to Facebook from work computers. They block a lot of websites like Meebo, GMail, etc.

26. Web"two.oh" wonderer
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:03 am

    I love Facebook. It has potentials. I can even see small companies using it as a business… eh “tool”. I seriously doubt though that it’s Facebook intention to become a business tool in their current form. Sure, there will be (or are) Facebook apps that target business users, but are you really saying that anyone serious about their business would trust a social networking site with their data? No, I’m actually asking.

27. Matt_
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    Mark Pesce ,a Internet maven and creator of VRML who is based in Australia, just finished a Essay on how Telstra will be Defeated by Gilmores Law so it will be interesting to see his take on this .

    “The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
    – John Gilmore

    http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=30

28. Aaron
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:18 am

    They aren’t the only one to ban Facebook. Shaw Communications in BC, Canada has banned Facebook and MYSpace. Not acceptable use they say.

29. Facebook Buyout Rumormonger
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Telstra is pulling a MySpace! They’re blocking Facebook to drive down it’s value, just like MySpace did to PhotoBucket! Expect a buyout offer any day now!

    You read it here first, folks.

30. Hashim
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:37 am

    I bet someone at Telstra did something bad to someone else using Facebook, and that’s why this ban happened.

31. xpherion
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:44 am

    facebook is popular and any article related to FB will give TC more hit.

32. Nicole Simon
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    I have to wonder too if those commenting on “yeah it will replace the intranet!!” ever worked in a major corporation.

    Facebook much like Myspace is an as likely candidate to get a ban on the corporate network access as several German companies have banned Ebay Access from desks as well. If you need access to ebay for biz purposes, you will be reinstated but other than that, for most people this is at the moment about wasted time. And about legal liabilities.

    Your employer does not pay you for surfing Facebook and keeping up with your friends. In most cases it is even to be seen how far private mail is allowed or useful.

    Is this web 2,0ish shiny bright and fun? No, but still normal business in most places.

    A clever company though would put this ban on but relief it at those standard lunch times, when the employer is free to do what he likes.

33. Sean McGee
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 10:00 am

    Regardless of all the above: an employee’s performance should not be based on his/her wise use of time. It should be based on results.

    If an employee can perform and produce acceptable results, why not let him/her waste time on facebook?

    “… any half-intelligent employer in the 21st century should be measuring their employees by their OUTPUT, not by what time they punch the clock or what they are doing each minute of the day.” — Cameron Reilly (http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2007/07/27/cams-world-27-july-2007)

34. Adi
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    4. Michael = 100% Right. As soon as I got my new job and saw that my company has a profile (or some ppl have a profile on facebook) I re-checked my profile and deleted some stuff.

    Not, because I’m scared to lose my job (why would I) but it’s just a fishy feeling.

35. Benedict
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am

    Not just facebook, even online messengers (yahoo, msn, etc) can be banned as well from my experience.

36. Jimmy L.
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    Y facebook will never take off as a business networking tool?
    Because a 40, 50, or 60+ year old dude (avg. age of execs) on facebook is just plain creepy…and adding one as a friend is creepier.

37. matt
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    I know this blog is free to read, but can I somehow pay for a version that doesn’t have any posts about Facebook? I will email you my credit card information.

38. Dominic
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    I guess the money these ‘ old dudes’ might be spending on advertising is reason enough. Cash talks……….period.

39. Vijay Teach Me
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    Telestra banned FB, why are employees not doing their work, or found the managers on FB.
    When ppl are bored they go to FB MS, Telestra should give their employees more challenging tasks.

    All Internet should be banned if you are the owner and full access no monitoring if you are an employee

    Vijay

40. Scott
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    You can’t do it! You can’t do it! As many times as you have been challenged to do so, you can’t go 5 days without writing about Facebook! What is wrong with you people? Facebook is not a leader in ANYTHING other than write-ups in Techcrunch.

41. jose
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 1:15 pm

    I share my doubts of Facebook being used like a business tool. It sounds like an excuse to keep the circus on.

42. MB
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm

    So far, my corporate employer has not banned Facebook, nor GMail. If I’m allowed to check in first thing in the morning before the clock, later after the clock or during a break - this just allows me to breathe and check out the world outside, like opening a window.

    For example, writing a short status update and just communicating a thought to friends is just good for you and your work. Of course you don’t want employees wasting time, but outright banning a site like that is just lazy. There are other and much better ways to manage your staff and making sure they are actually doing the work.

    As for banning hotmail or gmail, I sometimes need to use gmail since I have a lot of informal contacts there and part of the work gets easier when making use of that network.

    By the way, my corporate employer has about 2-3% employees, more than a thousand, in it’s Facebook “network”. I hope that the more people get involved in a company’s network, the harder it will become to ban the site. Or maybe it’s the other way around..

43. john horsley
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    Part of the idea in mind whilst building marzar was to create a platform that could not only be used for business networking. But to allow users to set up intranet / extranets, create collaborative group spaces, store and share files and access on demand business applications. I wanted to create an adaptable environment that is and build an enterprise 2.0. A place to go to work and a place to network. We are registering our first 1000 users for the launch to be included please visit http://www.marzar.com

44. Joel B
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    Telstra is retarded period… they think they have the right to be the country’s sole provider of broadband services.

45. David Mackey
    

    July 27th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    I can see banning Facebook…If one isn’t going to utilize it as a business tool. There is a lot of room for abuse, and a lot of temptation to do so if there isn’t a clear delineator between business and personal usage.

46. Sammy
    

    July 28th, 2007 at 10:02 am

    #43: “Facebook is not a leader in ANYTHING other than write-ups in Techcrunch.”

    What are you talking about? Have you seen the numbers? Do you talk to people in the real world?

    I am certainly not one of the FB junkies. And I resisted joining for many years (have had a .edu account for many years after graduating). But the sheer torrent of invites from my friends in the last 5 months - all in their 30s - is a testimonial to how quickly FB is growing as THE social platform.

    I hate using a lot of it. I hate getting messages in my email that tell me that a friend has written to me on FB, logging in, clicking the Inbox tab, and then seeing the message. It could just have come in my original message as God intended it to!

    But I can’t deny that it is the internet phenomena. And TC does it’s readers justice by giving it the coverage it does. So get used to it, or set up some RSS filter that lets you remove all FB news.

47. Peter Kelley
    

    July 29th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    If they have banned it it hasn’t happened yet. As of a few seconds ago it was still accessible through their corporate firewall.

48. Someone in Telstraland
    

    July 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

    Facebook was unavailable from within the Telstra network for a short time one day last week. It has since returned, and is available now. It’s not clear that anybody tried to ban it; it could well have been a network issue.