Facebook at Work, Facebook Inc's professional version of its social network, is expected to launch in the coming months, after spending a year in tests, a company executive said.

The new service, geared towards workplace collaboration, is nearly identical to its ubiquitous social network, with a scrolling news "feed", "likes" and a chat service. "I would say 95 per cent of what we developed for Facebook is also adopted for Facebook at Work," Julien Codorniou, director of global platform partnerships at Facebook, told Reuters.

However, Facebook at Work users will maintain special profiles that are distinct from their existing Facebook profiles.

The company is also developing exclusive products for Facebook at Work, including security tools, Codorniou said.

Facebook started beta-testing the service in January and has kept it as a free, "invite-only" service for companies so far.

The service will be open to all companies once launched and Facebook plans to charge "a few dollars per month per user" for premium services such as analytics and customer support, a company spokeswoman said.

More than 300 companies are using Facebook at Work for now.

bbabo.Net