Facebook Rolls Out Workplace Service

Facebook Rolls Out Workplace Service
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Facebook wants you to use Facebook at work and make your company pay for access, according to Bloomberg.

A new office version of the social network, called Workplace, becomes widely available Monday. It’s meant to help employees collaborate with one another on products, listen to their bosses speak on Facebook Live and post updates on their work in the News Feed. Employers will be charged a monthly fee of $3 per employee for the first 1,000 monthly active users, $2 a head from 1,001 to 10,000 users and $1 per worker beyond that, Facebook said in a statement.

The product will give Facebook a new stream of revenue, to supplement advertising on its free social network. Workplace is designed to compete with services from Microsoft, Salesforce and Slack to provide a controlled setting online for collaborative conversations on the job. Microsoft is in the process of acquiring LinkedIn to add social elements to its business tools, for example.

“The new global and mobile workplace isn’t about closed-door meetings or keeping people separated by title, department or geography,“ Facebook said in a blog post. “Organizations are stronger and more productive when everyone comes together.“

Facebook already has 1,000 organizations using Workplace, including Starbucks, Oxfam and Booking.com, it said in the blog post.