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Will the new ‘Facebook at Work’ change your office?

Facebook at Work will be free, unlike popular service Slack. Photo: AAP

Facebook at Work will be free, unlike popular service Slack. Photo: AAP

This week, Facebook officially launched its latest offering, Facebook at Work.

In an attempt to delve even deeper into our online lives, the new app is designed to be used exclusively in the office, aimed at large companies where colleagues often don’t know each other from a bar of soap.

Users will be able to hide their work activity from their friends and family, and (importantly) their personal activity from their colleagues.

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“Facebook at Work’s strength is that we’ve spent 10 years and incorporated feedback from one billion active users,” Facebook engineering director Lars Rasmussen told Tech Crunch.

“All of that is embedded now in the same product but adapted for different use cases.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook at Work. Photo: Twitter

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook at Work. Photo: Twitter

How does it work?

In order to join Facebook at Work, your employer will need to register your company.

Once you’ve joined, you can link both your work and personal accounts so you’re logged in at the same time.

From there on, the service will work very similarly to your normal account, allowing you to share posts on timelines, post pictures, create events and chat on instant messenger.

Of course, this could cause some issues for users who forget which account they’re using and post a drunken holiday picture to their entire office.

But if you’re looking for an authoritative seal of approval, Rasmussen said Mark Zuckerberg himself makes all of his work announcements using the program.

Who are Facebook at Work’s competitors?

Facebook at Work will be free, unlike popular service Slack. Photo: AAP

Facebook at Work will be free, unlike popular service Slack. Photo: AAP

Facebook is certainly not the first social media platform to aim itself at the office environment.

Slack, Convo and Microsoft’s Yammer are all heavyweights in that department. However, Facebook is coming in hard by offering its service for free – for now at least.

Tech Crunch reported Facebook is yet to rule out eventually monetising the service with ads, as it has done with its original service.

With over 200,000 users and a $2.8 billion valuation in May this year, Slack is widely viewed as the most successful example of office messaging software.

It credits its success to a fun interface and sassy robot helper who gives tips at startup such as: “Don’t forget to stand up once in a while!”

Speaking earlier this year, Slack’s founder Stewart Butterfield said he wasn’t concerned about the imminent launch of Facebook at Work.

“The brand ‘Facebook’ is not, I think, well suited to being used for work,” he told The Next Web.

“The product sounds like it might be really useful at a really large company. Obviously, if it’s a seven-person company, there’s not much point in creating a profile.”


This content was proudly sponsored by SpotJobs. 

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