A report says ‘Facebook at Work’ will make using the site at work more acceptable

As anyone with a job will attest to, browsing Facebook at work is a big no-no — even if a lot of people browse the site when they’re supposed to be working anyway. Facebook seems to want to make using Facebook in the workplace more acceptable with its work-centric version of the site, imaginatively dubbed ‘Facebook at Work’.

According to a report from the Financial Times (paywall), the new site will be very similar to the Facebook we all know and love/loathe, but it will take on work-related purposes to better compete with the likes of LinkedIn. That includes chatting with colleagues, sharing collaborative files, and connecting with professional contacts.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of such an endeavour either. Back in June TechCrunch reported that Facebook’s ‘FB@Work’ was in the works to replace email and IM in the workplace. If both of the reports are accurate then it looks like Facebook is taking things a bit further. I don’t think it would be far-fetched to assume that the company’s workplace ambitions stop at collaboration and networking.

The Financial Times’s report also claims that the new site is being tested with certain companies, which means that it probably isn’t that far away from a public launch. We don’t know how much of the report is accurate, but it would be interesting to see if Facebook can transform its service from an indiscretion and into a necessary tool.

Image by Sean MacEntee under Creative Commons license