Facebook ‘At Work’ is coming next month

Facebook is at the core of Gen X’s social world and now it wants to be part of our professional life as well. Its not that we don’t use Facebook at work but the social networking giant wants to make that more official now.

The company plans to launch its enterprise communication and collaboration network Facebook At Work in the next few weeks on a per seat pricing model, reports The Information.

Like the usual Facebook, the enterprise offering will have your News Feed, Groups, Events, and a dedicated Messenger app - though it will be company specific. Apparently, there is audio and video calling option too to compete with Slack and Skype.

Another pretty significant advantage that Facebook will offer over most of its competitors is the ability for professionals to have a work profile. The work feed will also allow users to post questions for the rest of the organization to answer, while Events and Live video could prove to be helpful in a wide variety of situations.

The company believes it can keep individual employees engaged with the product, so it’s betting on a pricing plan that charges companies “per monthly active user” instead of charging a flat rate per company.

In Facebook words, “It’s easy to get started. You just create a new Facebook at Work account to connect with coworkers. This account is separate from your personal Facebook but works in similar ways. Use News Feed to stay updated, join groups to collaborate, send messages and get notifications about what’s most relevant to you.”

Facebook At Work’s USP is its familiarity. It should find joinees easier than many SaaS tools since people will already have a login, password, and know how to use it. That quick registration could help it leapfrog competitors that can often seem foreign or confusing compared to consumer software.

The project has been in development for almost two years and already has over 450 companies on board, including notable entities like Royal Bank Of Scotland. It has over 4.5 million subscribers who will likely have a few more free months after launch, before Facebook starts charging them.