Facebook is planning a new product aimed at professionals, in an effort to compete with Google Drive, LinkedIn, and Microsoft Office. Citing people familiar with the matter, The Financial Times said the new ‘Facebook at Work’ would allow users to chat with colleagues, build catalogs of contacts and collaborate on documents, core functions of LinkedIn and Google Drive. It said Facebook had begun testing the product with companies as its launch approaches, after more than a year of development.
For most of us, Facebook at work means scrolling through the pictures of your mate’s birthday party and getting in a couple of rounds of Farmville when you’re meant to be working on the Henderson presentation. But the world’s biggest social network reportedly wants to make things more professional, taking on LinkedIn with Facebook at Work. According to the Financial Times, Facebook is developing a new site that features a similar newsfeed and groups to the current friends and family-based social network, but enables you to collaborate with colleagues and keep in touch with professional contacts. Your personal Facebook feed — including potentially embarrassing photos, drunken posts and other personal stuff — would be kept separate. Up to now, Facebook has been associated with personal use, so you can keep in touch with friends and family. Companies and individuals can create pages, but those are public-facing pages for communicating with customers rather than an internal service for workers and companies to work together. The best-known business network is LinkedIn, which allows individuals to post their employment history, connect with colleagues and industry contacts, and look for jobs.
