Facebook's enterprise communications platform, Workplace, now has seven million paid subscribers, representing a 40% increase year-on-year.
Launched in 2016, Workplace has traditionally been one of Facebook's lowest-earning business units, often counted alongside the likes of Oculus and Portal under the "other" section of its financial results.
However, its steady growth and brand association has helped it secure some high profile customers, including the likes of Spotify and Starbucks - although it still lags behind market rivals Slack and Microsoft Teams.
"We built Workplace as an internal version of Facebook to run our own company, and it was so useful we started letting other organisations use it too, including everyone from Spotify to Starbucks to the World Health Organisation," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. "More companies are starting to use our virtual reality tools for work as well, and I'm excited to build more new ways for people to work together that weren't possible before."
Microsoft Teams revealed last month that it has surpassed 145 million daily active users - a yearly increase of 93%. Slack no longer reveals user numbers but, as of September 2019, the company recorded 12 million daily active users, almost double that of Facebook's Workplace.
As it looks to continue increasing users, Workplace has also announced a few new features, such as a live Q&A function and an integration with Microsoft 365 and Google G Suite's calendar. There are also 'diversity-focused' updates, such as emojis with different skin tones and a service that allows users to show their colleagues the correct way to pronounce their name.
The feature offers phonetic spellings.
-
LaunchDarkly to "double down" on observability with Highlight acquisitionNews Highlight's observability tools will be integrated into LaunchDarkly's Guarded Releases software deployment service
-
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE reviewReviews The Tab S10 FE retains the feel and core capabilities of Samsung's high-end S10 tablets, but compromises on the display and the performance
-
Big Tech AI alliance has ‘almost zero’ chance of achieving goals, expert saysNews Companies like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI all have competing objectives and approaches to openness, making true private-sector collaboration a serious challenge
-
Otter.ai brings collaborative AI to meetings with Otter AI ChatNews The speech-to-text giant has set its sights on contextual AI
-
Slack says automation can save every employee a month of work per yearNews Research from Slack found that workers believe generative AI tools will revolutionize productivity
-
Generative AI has left the metaverse in the dustOpinion Generative AI demonstrating tonnes of business use cases only serves to highlight the hopelessness of the metaverse
-
Meta to pay $725 million in Cambridge Analytica lawsuit settlementNews The settlement closes the long-running lawsuit into how Facebook's owner, Meta, handled the Cambridge Analytica scandal
-
Meta's earnings are 'cause for concern' and 2023 looks even bleaker
Analysis Calls for investor faith in metaverse tech only emphasise the worries that its investment strategy won't pay off
-
Seven steps to keeping metaverse meetings safe and secureIn-depth There are practical measures you can take to keep virtual meetings productive, safe and ethical as your team embraces VR-powered spaces
-
Into the metaverse: Everything we learned from our virtual tourOpinion Constant distractions – and not much collaboration – make it hard to see the business use cases
