“Facebook At Work” Coming In January

It’s an open secret that many people use Facebook while at work or during work hours; studies from SilkRoad Technologies and Intelligent Office show that many people access social media via mobile devices at least once a day, while some people admitted to spending at least an hour a day on social media while at work.

Facebook has noticed the rising trend of internal work communication and collaboration, which includes real-time instant messaging and document collaboration. So far, this area has been dominated by Microsoft (Yammer, Office suite) IBM (Connections), and even Google (Google Docs), and Facebook wants in on the game.

Facebook recently announced its entry into the work communication game in its latest offering “Facebook for Business,” which will be launching in early January. This workplace version of the social networking site will apparently look similar to the regular site, which will have a newsfeed and groups—the principal difference is that users can still keep their personal profile while building and maintaining their new workplace profile. This new extension of the Facebook platform will not only get it into the business networking game with the aforementioned companies, but also put it directly in competition with the current king of business networking, LinkedIn, which in turn gives users even more choice than before.

Facebook at Work is still a work in progress, however. So far, it’s similar in its beginnings that required students belonging to universities to getting an account in that it currently is only testing with companies that have agreed to trying out the service—about a dozen so far. Initially, Facebook will offer Facebook for Work free of charge and without the burden of ads in hopes to grow the service organically among old and new users.

The potential winners in the launch of Facebook for work? Mainly, recruiters (some of whom already use the social networking site to vet and view potential candidates), and users, who now have a plethora of choices when it comes to connecting with their fellow coworkers to work (and not necessarily outside of the workplace). Workplaces, on the other hand, are still waiting on the benefits from a potential work version of a social networking site that they still do not necessarily trust in the workplace. In addition, the question of trust and privacy is (and always has been) an issue with regular users of Facebook; will users who have already expressed their concern with Facebook’s handling of their private information entrust them with the information about their career lives?

Facebook’s entry into online internal business communication signals that the field is definitely something to be watched in the coming months. It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s new technology stands out from its competitors? How will the users benefit? And most of all, will it improve communication in the workplace?