Facebook launches a business version of its social networking platform

Batsirai Chikadaya Avatar

image credit: Facebook Newsroom

Earlier today Facebook launched its “Workplace by Facebook” product which utilizes Facebook’s social networking for family and friends principles and  applies it to your organization’s environment to network with your co-workers. basically, it’s Facebook for work.

The project was initially launched a year ago to a select few companies and through this successful testing phase was officially launched and opened to all companies today.

The main idea behind it is to create a workspace that both employees and employers are comfortable and accustomed to using through their years of “facebook training”.

The Workplace platform is primarily a communication tool, allowing co-workers the ability to interact regardless of their location. The platform has integrated existing facebook features to make its interface more familiar, these include:

  • the News Feed
  • Facebook Chat
  • Facebook Groups
  • Facebook Live
  • Reactions
  • Search
  • and Trending Posts

The platform also comes with its own set of unique features which include:

  • Facebook analytics and integrations
  • User identification which allows for easier integration with existing IT infrastructure
  • Multi-Company Groups which allows employees from different companies to work together in one space extending project collaboration in a safe and secure way

The product has been made free to non-profit organizations and educational institutes but the rest of us have to pay. Facebook is offering a free 3-month trial and 3 tier plan which offer the same range of services but prices according to the number of active users. The $3/month per user plan is for up to 1k users, the $2/month per user plan for 1k-10k users and the $1/month per user plan for +10k users. All services offer the following features:

  1. Unlimited file, photo, and video storage
  2. Unlimited team and project groups
  3. Live video streaming
  4. Monitoring tools for IT teams
  5. 1:1 support for administrators
  6. Secure collaboration between companies
  7. Single-sign on (SSO) support
  8. Integration with G Suite, Okta, OneLogin, Ping, Windows Azure AD

The daring new feat by Facebook to go into the business software sector is part of its efforts to make Facebook an all-in-one user experience. Speaking on its launch, Facebooks global head for Workplace noted that:

We want to replace a lot of old technologies like internal emails, mailing lists, newsletters…These are things that people want to get rid of…

Currently, Facebook has 1000 companies signed on it, with India being their biggest market and target audience. The product can be accessed via the Workplace by Facebook website.

 

 

One response

  1. Regina

    Great read and looking forward to exploring this Facebook for the workplace. Might be an interesting platform for techsavy/young companies.

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