Everyone knows Facebook
A big advantage of the Workplace by Facebook application is its look and use, which is essentially identical to the Facebook for public users. Facebook has 1.7 billion active users monthly, so the interface is quite well-known.
Companies or teams interested in the new application can try it for three months free of charge. They can download it on the Facebook website or in the mobile application stores Google Play and App Store.
After the trial period, the application will be charged at $3 a month for every user in a group of up to 1,000 active users. Teams of 1,001 to 10,000 active users will pay $2 per user. Teams of more than 10,000 active users will pay $1 per user.
According to the website of the US economics television channel CNBC, there is another big advantage of team communication services: this is the very fact that they offer clearer communication compared to e-mail. Workplace by Facebook can therefore be an easy and inexpensive alternative for businesses that are struggling with e-mail and looking for more effective tools.
A thousand companies to start with
At present the application is actively used by more than a thousand companies that joined the pilot operation during the past two years.
These include multinational corporations such as Starbucks or Danone, international non-profit organisations such as Oxfam, and local companies such as the Indian bank Yes Bank.
In terms of individual countries, Workplace by Facebook is most used in India, the United States, Norway, United Kingdom and France.
In collaboration with these companies, Workplace by Facebook has already implemented several new features, such as the possibility to create groups consisting of members from multiple companies, a simple way to record videos and share them with other members, audio and video calls or an overview of the most discussed posts.
"But for Facebook to become a real money-making service, it would have to add integrations to customer relationship management databases, financials and document repositories," concludes CNBC analyst Ari Levy.
Facebook will also need larger sales and support teams, which may take many years to build.
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Photos: http://newsroom.fb.com