Facebook for professionals to launch soon

Facebook at Work, Facebook's professional version of its social network, is expected to launch in the coming months, Reuters reports.

The new service is nearly identical to its ubiquitous social network, with a scrolling news "feed", "likes" and a chat service.

- I would say 95 percent 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.

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. The online career market, which includes LinkedIn Corp and Monster Worldwide Inc, is worth about $6 billion a year, market research firm IDC said in August.

More than 300 companies are using the beta version of Facebook at Work at the moment.