Facebook has launched the Facebook at Work platform for in office communication. The app will let businesses create their own social networks amongst their employees. Users can accesses the platform from the company's main website and can also download the Facebook at Work apps from Android and iOS app stores.
Facebook at work is designed to give employees within an organization a way chat with one another, share news, organize events and collaborate on documents. Facebook says that the app was created “completely for use within a company,” meaning the information employees share there is “safe, secure, confidential and completely separate from their personal Facebook profile,” a company spokesperson stated. "The info shared among employees is only accessible to people in the company."
Although the app can be downloaded by anyone, it is accessible only to a few test partners for now. The platform is targeted initially at companies with 100 or more employees. According to reports Facebook employees have been using the Facebook at Work platform for a while now for internal communication. Facebook at Work will compete with Microsoft’s Yammer, Skype for Business suite, LinkedIn, Slack, Convo, and Socialcast, among others. The company plans a global rollout some time in 2015.
It remains to be seen how Facebook will monetize the service, as of now the platform will neither host ads nor track companies' use patterns and data. A Facebook spokesperson stated, “We're just getting started, so it's too early to discuss future plans.”
Source: Techcrunch