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Maybe it’s an age thing, but I’ve never felt comfortable sharing my work life on my Facebook page alongside photos of myself drinking beer in exotic locations. So I, for one, hope that the news reports about Facebook launching a new site, “Facebook at work” are true.
According to the Financial Times’ Hannah Kuchler:
“The new site will look very much like Facebook – with a newsfeed and groups – but will allow users to keep their personal profile with its holiday photos, political rants and silly videos separate from their work identity.”
Somewhat belatedly, Facebook has finally come to realize that we all have a number of personas and that one newsfeed does not fit all our different personal identities, a fact that has enabled LinkedIn (at least, up until now), to capture the professional side of social networking.
For once, Facebook is following a trend led by service providers, as opposed to operators being forced to respond to the latest social media initiatives. Even as far back as a 2012 survey, service providers were recognizing that their subscribers have many facets to their identities and different reasons for using their mobile devices, resulting in the potential need for separate billing. In its whitepaper based on that survey of over 50 service providers, Heavy Reading senior analysts Ari Banerjee and Sarah Wallace noted:
“Customers are asking (communications service providers) to provide capabilities such as separate price plans for employees’ personal use and business use and to disable certain services when a user switches from business to personal mode.”
Indeed, in today’s hyperconnected world, we’re constantly shifting from one mode to the next and, as Facebook has reportedly realized, our communication needs for each mode is different and has to be served distinctly.
And if it stops my friends filling up my newsfeed with press releases of their company’s latest products, I’ll be happy. (I might even take a selfie of myself drinking a beer to that.)
Jeff Barak is Amdocs’ corporate editor and manages the company’s corporate communications services team. He joined the company in 2008 after more than two decades as a print journalist.
Photo copyright: bloomua / 123RF Stock Photo
