Many large social networks as of late have sought to grow by acquisition. Twitter acquired some of the most successful third party apps designed to work well with its own platform—TweetDeck and Vine (and over 30 less recognizable others!).  Facebook in particular has acquired multiple big-name up and comers in the past year alone—Whatsapp, Oculus VR, and Instagram.  Facebook’s acquisition number (50!) dates all the way back to the purchase of their domain name back in 2005, and most recently they purchased WaveGroup Sound, a sound studio, in August of this year.

But according to new buzz from an article in the Financial Times, Facebook is looking to grow and expand again, but this time from within.  Supposedly called Facebook at Work, this arm of the social network would be its answer to LinkedIn.  An article in CNN Money notes of the still relatively under-wraps project, “…it’ll look and feel just like the social media website does now. The only difference? It’s meant for chatting with coworkers and collaborating on office projects.”

Many tech forecasters feel the key is to make sure that personal and professional Facebooks are kept separate enough not to let those personal posts bleed into professional lives.  Facebook employees already use the social network for internal collaborations.

What do you think?  Is this the predecessor of a further corporate invasion into personal lives or a useful wave of the future in professional technology?