With 1.5bn active members, Facebook is on the way to achieving its aim of connecting everyone in the world, all 7.3bn of us, from mewling babes to muddled centenarians. But the social networking giant faces obstacles. One is China, wooed by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg with a speech in Beijing last weekend, which he delivered in Mandarin in the hope of charming the country into lifting its ban on his ?product.
The other challenge to crack is the global workforce of 3bn people, many based in offices where employers have done a China and blocked the site. The tech firm’s response has been to launch Facebook at Work, a business-friendly twin to the personal service. It has received a boost with the news this week that Royal Bank of Scotland will adopt it for its 100,000 staff by the end of 2016.
The work version looks like the personal site; users can join groups, share files and swap messages. The difference is that no one outside their company can see any of it. The app has screenshots of idealised examples, like a young woman messaging her colleagues with the inspiring sentiment: “Can’t believe I’ve been at Acme for two years! I couldn’t ask for a better workplace.”