Facebook service aimed at professionals to launch in coming months

Facebook at Work, Facebook Inc.'s professional version of its social network, is expected to launch in the coming months, after spending a year in tests, a company executive said.

The new service, geared towards workplace collaboration, is nearly identical to its ubiquitous social network, with a scrolling news "feed", "likes" and a chat service.

"I would say 95 percent of what we developed for Facebook is also adopted for Facebook at Work," Julien Codorniou, director of global platform partnerships at Facebook, told Reuters.

However, Facebook at Work users will maintain special profiles that are distinct from their existing Facebook profiles.

The company is also developing exclusive products for Facebook at Work, including security tools, Codorniou said.

Facebook started beta-testing the service in January and has kept it as a free, "invite-only" service for companies so far.

The service will be open to all companies once launched and Facebook plans to charge "a few dollars per month per user" for premium services such as analytics and customer support, a company spokeswoman said.

The online career market, which includes LinkedIn Corp and Monster Worldwide Inc, is worth about $6 billion a year, market research firm IDC had said in August.

More than 300 companies, including Heineken, Royal Bank of Scotland and jewelry company Stella and Dot, are using Facebook at Work and Club Mediterranee SA is set to be the latest adopter.

The French resort company will offer the service to all its 13,000 employees through summer 2016, Anne Browaeys-Level, Club Mediterranee's chief marketing & digital officer, told Reuters.

Facebook's Codorniou said almost everything on Facebook at Work is the same as the regular Facebook social network, with some minor exceptions.

"You cannot play Candy Crush on Facebook at Work."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

'Facebook at Work', anyone?

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook said Wednesday it is testing a version of its leading social network tailored for getting jobs done in workplaces instead of tuning into the lives of friends.

"Facebook at Work" smartphone applications appear in Apple's online app store and the Google Play shop for Android-powered mobile devices, but can only be accessed by a few companies collaborating with the social network.

The pilot program is intended to gain feedback to refine the offering, according to Facebook spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana.

"We have internally used Facebook at Work for many years now, it works pretty effectively and efficiently for collaboration," Diana told AFP.

"We think we can bring this insight to other companies."

Facebook at Work has news feeds, chats, groups and other features that can be found on the widely-used social network, but sharing can only be done with people inside a particular company.

Page backgrounds are a different color from the well-known Facebook blue, ostensibly so bosses will know at a glance when social networking is work-oriented.

The customized work social networks are hosted on Facebook servers in the Internet cloud, but each respective firm controls any data shared by its employees.

Diana would not disclose what companies are involved in the pilot program, but did say some had offices in various countries.

California-based Facebook did not discuss how it will make money from workplace versions of the social network, but it could follow an established model of charging subscriptions to it as a cloud-based service.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com