“Facebook at Work”: The social media site could be about to take over your office
Facebook is reportedly developing a version of its website designed for use in the workplace.
“Facebook at Work” will be a purely professional version of the social network stripped of the embarrassing photos and cute cat videos on your personal page.
According to reports in the Financial Times (who quote an anonymous source on the matter), the new platform will include communal documents in the mould of Google Drive, an in-house chat system focused on communicating with colleagues and a professional contacts network.
A Facebook platform designed for work use would provide competition to LinkedIn, the business social networking service with 187 monthly active users, and Yammer, Microsoft’s Twitter-style business social network.
Earlier in the year a similar report on a forthcoming “Facebook at Work” site appeared on TechCrunch. An anonymous source told the website:
We are making work more fun and efficient by building an at-work version of Facebook.
According to both reports, a prototype is often used by Facebook employees based in London.
However, just like your stealthily glimpsed news feed while in the office, Facebook’s plans have been developed in secret. The company has not responded to request for comment from City AM.
Last week Facebook did publically confirm one new update to its site. From next year on, it will reduce the amount of promotional posts appearing on users’ timelines.
The shift will not see paid adverts disappear, but rather blatant promotional material posted by a page a user likes.
Posts that will be removed will include those “that solely push people to buy a product or install an app…that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context…that reuse the exact same content from ads.”
Last month Facebook recorded a 59 per cent increase in third-quarter revenue to $3.2bn from $2bn at the same period a year earlier.