Facebook announced Monday that a new application called Workplace is now available to all companies and organizations.
The "business version of Facebook" was first used by the company itself and "a few organizations around the world," according to a Facebook post by the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg briefly described Workplace and how it has helped Facebook:
"A few years ago, a group of engineers built a version of Facebook that we use internally to make our company more open and help teams work together ... Every week I have an open Q&A where employees can ask me any question they want. People vote on the top questions they want me to answer in one of our groups. There are so many examples like this of how we use these tools to make our company more open and work better. One day, we realized other companies would benefit from using these tools and being more open as well."
Workplace is an ad-free platform that businesses and organizations sign up for as a group. Users' profiles on the app are not connected to their existing Facebook accounts.
The platform offers group chats, video calls, live video and a news feed with updates and statuses from co-workers. The app's similarity to the classic Facebook, which has more than 1.7 billion users, makes it easy to learn and use.
According to The Associated Press, the cost of Workplace will change as more companies and organizations begin using it. For the first 1,000 active users, the service will cost $3 per user per month. The cost will decline with more users, with a total number of 1,001 to 10,000 users paying $2 each per month and a total of more than 10,000 monthly users paying $1.
Facebook is offering a free 3-month trial of Workplace before requiring users to pay for the app.
Workplace won't charge inactive users, and it's free for nonprofits and educational institutions.
See more at Workplace by Facebook.
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