Facebook is secretly working on a new website called “Facebook at Work” to get a foothold in the office that will see the social network of more than 1bn people compete directly with Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn.
The Silicon Valley company is developing a new product designed to allow users to chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents, competing with Google Drive and Microsoft Office, according to people familiar with the matter.
The new site will look very much like Facebook – with a newsfeed and groups – but will allow users to keep their personal profile with its holiday photos, political rants and silly videos separate from their work identity. Facebook declined to comment. Facebook employees have long used the site in their daily work and expanding this to other companies has been discussed internally for some time. The project began in earnest during the past year and is now being tested with companies as its launch approaches. Some of the engineers developing Facebook at Work are based in London.
To become an integral part of office life, Facebook will need to win the trust of companies and organisations, which will expect to be able to conduct confidential conversations and share important information on the site, without it falling into the hands of rivals. Many companies, concerned about falling productivity as employees spend work time checking personal messages and internet gossip, currently ban Facebook from the workplace.
The company, which has often been criticised by privacy advocates for how it handles user data, has been trying to rebuild its reputation on privacy this year, changing the default to a more private setting. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, said at the annual general meeting this year that these changes marked an “important cultural shift” for the company. Facebook security was enhanced by the rollout of encryption by default last year, after the Snowden leaks shone a light on how easily the US National Security Agency had been able to access the data of large numbers of users.
Mr Zuckerberg said in July that Facebook still had “a lot of room to grow”. US users spend about 40 minutes a day on the service but, he noted, they spend nine hours each day with digital media on TVs, phones and computers. “There’s a big opportunity to improve the way people connect and share,” he said.
