Facebook’s Workplace is now available to all organizations

Though 160 million people in India alone are using Facebook throughout the day to do numerous things from stalking people to sharing memories, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants us to use Facebook at our offices also.

Facebook for Work, which was unveiled for some specific companies including Starbucks, Danone, Godrej and Yes Bank 18 months ago, is available for every organization now as, 'Facebook Workplace'.

Facebook will charge a monthly fee to businesses for using the service. The companies will pay $3 per user for the first 1,000 monthly active users, $2 per user for 1,001 – 10,000 monthly active users, and $1 per user for over 10,000 monthly active users. This means, for the first time, the social networking giant will generate revenue through fees instead of ads.

On the lines of usual facebooking, Workplace also offers the same features in a bid to replace work emails. “Whether it's basic infrastructure such as News Feed, or the ability to create and share in Groups or via chat, or useful features such as Live, Reactions, Search and Trending posts. This means you can chat with a colleague across the world in real time, host a virtual brainstorm in a Group, or follow along with your CEO’s presentation on Facebook Live,” said Facebook in a blog post announcing the commercial launch on Monday

According to Ramesh Gopalkrishna, Asia-Pacific Head of Facebook at Work, Workplace will be completely separate from an employee’s personal Facebook account, and will also have a separate chat app called “WorkChat”. The decision to keep the two separate was based on feedback from customers, said Gopalkrishna. It is available as an app for mobile devices and also for desktop.

“We've also built unique, Workplace-only features that companies can benefit from such as a dashboard with analytics and integrations with single sign-on, in addition to identity providers that allow companies to more easily integrate Workplace with their existing IT systems,” added Facebook in the blog.

Since its launch, Facebook at Work has added over 1,000 companies who got to use the Facebook version for corporates free of cost.

India is the top adopter of Facebook at Work, followed by Norway, US, UK, and France. Among the Indian companies using Facebook at Work are L&T Infotech, UST Global, Paytm, Practo, Zomato, Delhivery, BookMyShow, ibibo, AskMe, Urban Ladder, Girnarsoft (Cardekho, Zigwheels & Gaadi) KartRocket, Edureka, eVidyaloka, Vision India Foundation, Landmark Group and Telenor.