Office Snapshots: The Way Web 2.0 Works

My office is fairly plain. We have a few couches and an air hockey table, which are nice, but a visit to Office Snapshots makes me a bit jealous. The blog is updated almost every day with photos from deep inside some of the biggest Web 2.0 and tech companies in the world. They get all of their photos either by taking the tour themselves, scouring Flickr or Photobucket for images, or by begging hapless employees to take a few snapshots while they go about their daily routine.





If you think that all Web 2.0 company employees are in cushy startup-style offices with lots of modern architecture and expensive furniture, you'd be partially right. Companies from Netvibes to Flickr all have very attractive offices with comfy looking chairs and warm, comfortable lighting. On the other hand, check out the Craigslist "offices" if you want to see a globally known company that looks like it's run out of the living room of a townhouse. Not all companies are the same, and neither are their offices.



Office Snapshots has photos from the offices of companies as large as Cisco and as small as Chumby, as influential as The New York Times and as groundbreaking as Joost. Each post gives you a little insight into the company and where their headquarters are located, and you get to see a few photographs of the company's offices.

Sometimes the photos are candid and show off the company's furniture or work environment, sometimes they show off the amenities the company offers its employees. Other times, however, the shots are lively and feature workers in meetings or conference rooms, eating lunch, or working busily on laptops at their desks or in meeting rooms.



Usually you get at least one outdoor shot of the company's offices, which is particularly interesting. Not all great companies have fancy buildings or campuses. Companies like Ning and Creative Commons have suites in high-rise buildings, and if you drove by CampusBug's headquarters you'd never know what was inside. By looking at the photos, you may not get a feel for the work that the people do while they're there, but you do get a feeling for the type of work environment at the company.



Still, Office Snapshots is fun to look at, especially if you're thinking about applying for a job at one of those crazy tech startups. At least you'll get a peek at what your desk might look like before you send in your resume.