Facebook also wants to conquer the office

Facebook is on course to establish itself in the everyday lives of one-fifth of humanity. But the world's largest online network is probably aiming for something bigger than just connecting its 1.35 billion users privately.According to media reports, Facebook is planning a foray into a new business segment worth many billions. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to change the way people communicate within companies. However, data privacy concerns could become a drag on the American online giant.

Outdated email communication

The need for a revolution is undisputed: Many employees are shown every day how outdated the information channels are in their companies. Privately, news comes from Facebook or the short message service Twitter, for quick contact there's Whatsapp, search engines like Google pick out information from the infinite expanses of the web in a matter of seconds. In the office, on the other hand, communication by e-mail dominates. Unimportant messages are often spread too widely, while relevant facts are often a secret to a few recipients. Knowledge is scattered on the intranet or in specialized databases, and employees receive too much information - but often not the right information.

A "Facebook at work" that transfers the functionality of the online network into everyday business life would not be the first attempt to change this. Back in 2011, the French IT service provider Atos declared war on e-mails internally - because the flow of information with them functioned too poorly. Executives spent up to twenty hours a week just reading and writing e-mails, the company argued. Employees had already received around two hundred electronic letters per day in 2010. At the same time, a quarter of working time is spent searching for information.

Contested division

In the meantime, there are many tools designed to remedy the situation. For example, company-internal short message platforms in which information is visible to many employees in one fell swoop. One of the pioneers, the start-up Yammer, is now part of the top dog Microsoft, which wants to expand its offering beyond the classic office programs. This is because the Windows giant is itself being hounded by young challengers who want to profit in particular from the advance of smartphones and tablets. Facebook's former head of technology Brett Taylor, for example, has set himself the goal of "becoming the Office for the mobile era" with his start-up Quip. It should also be possible to edit spreadsheets conveniently on the cell phone screen, and a short message service for exchanging information about the document is integrated for this purpose.

Facebook's own network is now used by almost 8,500 employees for professional exchanges. For example, product teams communicate with each other in their own Facebook groups, as employees told the media. Newsfeeds, as they are known from private Facebook, or Messenger are also used for short messages. The first hint that Facebook is considering making this system palatable to other companies was given back in June. At that time, the technology blog Techcrunch reported on a project called FB@Work. Details remained rather vague, but Techcrunch already mentioned that the company platform was being developed in London.

Data protection as a concern

Now the Financial Times follows up with more details: Communication in Facebook groups, networking with professional contacts, joint work on documents. The advantage for Facebook is the 1.35 billion people who already feel at home on the online network. But privacy concerns could thwart plans for a corporate Facebook. Especially after the NSA scandal, for example, Europeans have become so suspicious that American cloud services have set up data centers on the continent one after the other. And Facebook, which earns its money by analyzing user data for personalized ads, would have to do a lot of convincing. After all, the online network can now boast comprehensive encryption. (SDA)