Facebook said on Tuesday that its portal Smart Screens will be incorporated into its workplace social network for business, which has become a more than three million paid users.
The number of paid users at work has increased by more than 50 percent in the last eight months, the company said, adding that it has started its second annual flow conference at a hotel in Silicon Valley, Menlo Park.
The Workplace Platform was launched three years ago as a separate, personal social network designed to provide companies with tools for productivity and work collaboration.
Workplace competitors include services fielded by Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft, which aim to increase collaboration and eliminate reliance on overloaded email inboxes.
The workplace is separate from Facebook’s main social network and, according to executives, is intended as a platform to connect everyone in a company, from the counter or warehouse worker to the chief executive.
The workplace claims that one of the differences from its competitors is that it connects all employees in the business regardless of their role, even if their only computing device is a smartphone.
An array of new features unveiled by the workplace at the rally was created according to the tendency of employees to collaborate and coordinate using video and mobile devices.
A new “Portal Workplace” app has tempted employees to work using Facebook’s smart screen, while adding automatic video captioning capabilities and enhancing video quality.
“The future of work is about breaking down barriers – geographical, departmental, linguistic and much more,” the workplace said in a release.
“That means we need technology that can connect everyone wherever they are.”
Facebook last month unveiled second-generation portal smart screens, identifying them as a way to stay connected with loved ones on leading social networks.
The new app puts the Internet-connected smart screens and their convenient features to work.
“We’re making it easier for these employees to do great things by helping them connect to their organization via mobile in a secure way,” said Karandeep Anand, vice president of Workplace.
“We are also excited to offer rich video features that enable all employees to be more connected and collaborative.”
Features added to improve the business social network include learning tools, surveys, goal setting and showing gratitude to colleagues.