This article was published on October 22, 2012

A revival? WorkFu in ‘very positive discussions’ about the future of its professional network


A revival? WorkFu in ‘very positive discussions’ about the future of its professional network

WorkFu, a website for professionals that relied on user’s existing social networks, just might be making a comeback.

The company updated a blog post on its website, entitled ‘The End’, with the following information:

“We are very pleased to announce that we are in very positive discussions regarding the future of WorkFu. It has always been important to us that if the project was taken over it could be moved forward as we intended, we may also play a part in this future.

We will update with more information very soon…”

WorkFu announced they would be “turning off the power” at the end of August. Although the site had been bootstrapped for roughly nine months, WorkFu’s founders said the vision and “deliverables” of the business had changed to the point where they no longer had the resources to continue development.

“There has been an incredible amount of work behind the scenes,” the post said. “We’ve been working non-stop while juggling individual commitments to deliver and iterate as quickly as we could.”

The founders later added: “In truth this has not been an easy decision. Yes, we could simply leave the site online, but without active development and a team managing and pushing it forward it will slowly degrade. Ultimately we didn’t feel it was fair on our users to leave the project in this state of limbo.”

WorkFu was known for having a very elegant user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), which incorporated many of the most popular social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and GitHub.

Users created a professional “Smart Profile” and were then given a “FUScore” for every available job opening, which explained how well suited or socially compatible they were for the position. By adding new skills and experience, similar to LinkedIn, users would boost their “FUScore” and ultimately be able to apply for the position.

Chat functionality meant that the employer or client could also speak with WorkFu users before comitting to a hire. At the same time, users could review and manage all of their applications from a single location. In short, it was a pretty full solution for any professional looking for new work or opportunities.

The Next Web has contacted the WorkFu team, which includes Neil Kinnish, Mike Kus, Pete Nelson and Adam Martin, to find out more.

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