As the workplace inclines further into an online environment, as we rely further on tools like emails and Skype calls and social media, companies want to manifest central avenues to house all this digital chatter.
That’s why companies use SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms like Slack or Microsoft’s Yammer or Salesforce Chatter. Your company likely employs one of these services, but that might be changing soon if Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team have anything to do about it.
As TechCrunch reports, the company will soon unveil what they’re calling Facebook @ Work in the next weeks under a per seat pricing model. It has lured in lucrative businesses like The Royal Bank of Scotland, which has some 100,000 employees. Facebook @ Work will provide a one-fit-meets-all program, granting companies services like video and audio calling, Groups, and its popular Messenger platform, in addition to “the social network’s profiles, Events and Live video features,” as TechCrunch reports.
It is just another in a line of encroaching services as Facebook aims to consume every aspect of our digital lives. If you’ve ever signed up for any dating app, any fantasy football league, or some other social networks, you may have used your Facebook to register. This is why Facebook @ Work will likely achieve, at the very least, moderate success: Our familiarity with the platform has transformed it into an outward portal for the rest of the Web. As the internet becomes more expansive, slower users (i.e. regular people) need that central town hall location.
Hence Facebook’s continued dominance in digital spaces. Here are a few of the ways we think Facebook could be part of our lives in the years to come.
FB Matchmaker
Dating has shifted online, particularly for millennials. Moving to a new city teaches you this lesson, or it did for me anyways: Meeting new people can be tough. Smartphones serve as protective shields in social situations, kids checking their email or social media like Facebook.
So why wouldn’t the platform housing most of your social networks gear toward matchmaking. A common complaint in reference to online dating? How tedious creating a new profile is. But with Facebook, you already have one, and it can be imported to the new service we’re calling FB Matchmaker.
FB Matchmaker will market itself with slogans like “Connect with your suitors who have always been there” and “Finding friends just a click away.” Utilizing your friends list and common listed interests (which other apps already do), it will find you matches with common acquaintances who live in your city. It will be the new finding new relationship through a friend of a friend, except they’ll just be your Facebook friends. Forevermore, a new meaning will be attached to the phrase “Facebook Official.”
Voting Like with Facebook
It’s almost a parody to say, but Facebook is the biggest forum for political discourse there is. Something happens in the news, and people have their say. I’m sure you’ve unfriended or politely muted some folks once learning how they really felt about Candidate X or Issue Y.
(Or, perhaps, you’re one of those odd, reasonable people who don’t vomit their immediate reactions to a headline without reading any context or researching for themselves on any matter.)
How powerful that thumbs-up has always been. Well, now it just became a little more powerful. As political pundits wonder how we can engage more millennial voters, Facebook, we could see, will offer a solution. Beginning with a grassroots approach in technology hot spots like Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Austin, Facebook will propose using its platform as a voter registration service, much like the DMV does when citizen apply for driver’s license. Facebook will have a distinct advantage in this regard: It’s not the fucking DMV.
Once this avenue proves successful, the service will evolve into a voting platform until everyone uses a simple thumbs-up like to approve propositions and vote for candidates. The service will be labeled “a political revolution,” which will cause hipsters to harrumph offline while sipping west-coast IPAs and smoking their vapes. The “I Voted” sticker will be replaced by a status update that only unlocks once users vote and it will become the envy of all the social media land.
Facebook Home
With Facebook’s acquiring Oculus Rift, its plan was always to help revolutionize mass perception of virtual reality. Once Oculus Rift invents affordable VR headsets—or even just Augmented Reality Headsets—and an inevitable mass proliferation takes place, Facebook will unveil its newest service Facebook Home at CES.
“So you want to Netflix and Chill with your significant other,” Zuckerberg will begin. “But there’s one problem: They’re not there. Maybe they’re away on business, or you’re dating someone long-distance. No worries.”
Then a curtain will slide away, revealing a woman sitting alone on her couch. On screen, though, two people will be seated on a red-leather love seat, watching an episode of Marvel’s latest spinoff TV series. Zuckerberg will press a button, and the screen will cut to a man alone, in small, windowless room. The only furniture in the room is the chair he’s sitting on.
“This man,” Zuckerberg will whisper evenly, “is thousands of miles away in Tokyo, Japan, but to him, he’s inches away from the love of his life. In fact, they’re holding hands.”
The audience will check the screen and see the live video confirming this fact: The couple is holding hands.
“Facebook Home lets you be wherever you want, with whomever you want, whenever you want, all from the comfort of your home,” Zuckerberg will shout to roaring applause. “Wish you lived on a Caribbean beach, the rolling waves and sea breeze relaxing your senses after a long day? Or perhaps the Rocky Mountains aims to be the sight you see when you look outside your window? All of this is possible thanks to Facebook Home.”
“As we like to say,” Zuckerberg will finish, “welcome to the home you always wish you had.”
And with that, we will achieve our final synthesis with Facebook. Life is Facebook; Facebook is life. But then again, in your heart of hearts, you always knew it would end this way.
