BranchOut, the three-year-old professional network for Facebook, is moving in a new direction with the launch of a new mobile messaging app for the workplace.
The app, called Talk.co, lets employees send messages and set up group chats with other coworkers across iOS, Android and desktop. Users can also share videos and links within the app and even snap pictures with filters — if you really feel like expressing yourself to other people at work.
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Rick Marini, founder and CEO of BranchOut, told Mashable that the decision to introduce a separate messaging app came after watching user behavior: BranchOut's team noticed that users continued to use the service for "professional networking" after finding a job, but most preferred to interact with their coworkers rather than peers in the industry.
"We started to talk to companies about how we could help them with that interaction," Marini said in an interview. In response, companies revealed that when employees communicated with each other on mobile, they chose to use more general consumer-facing apps like WhatsApp and GroupMe. "That's when light bulbs went off."

The team started working on messaging features four or five months ago, and according to Marini, reached a point a month ago where they had to decide whether BranchOut could offer a job search tool and a messaging tool simultaneously.
"We got to a point where we were trying to do two different things within one product and that probably hurt our growth because that was confusing to users," Marini said. He eventually opted to spin off the messaging service into a separate app while continuing to operate BranchOut. Roughly three-quarters of the staff is working on Talk.co's launch and the rest are working on BranchOut. "Now we can restart our growth efforts," he said.
BranchOut's messaging service comes just a few days after Cotap, a startup founded by two former Yammer employees, released a similar mobile messaging tool for enterprise use. Both apps connect employees to one another through email rather than phone numbers — since many employees don't have all of their coworkers' phone numbers — and both aim to address the bring-your-own-device trend in offices. Cotap is currently only available for iPhone, but plans to be cross-platform as well.
BranchOut has raised $49 million to date from Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and others. While Talk.co is free to use, the startup plans to introduce a premium version for businesses in the future.
Image: Talk.co and Flickr, Joi