Slashdot Mirror
Is Facebook Working On a Smartphone?
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times reports that Facebook has resumed its stealthy efforts to create a smartphone, apparently to assert its position in an Internet increasingly accessed via mobile devices, and to counter products and moves made by major competitors Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. The Times reports that Mark Zuckerberg has gotten personally involved in the project, which has recently landed several iPhone/iPad engineers from Apple. Wired ran a similar story a month ago, reporting that Facebook has ramped up its "Buffy" code-named collaboration with HTC on a phone which will probably be Android-based, support HTML5 and include a large touchscreen and high-quality camera (for Instagram). Facebook won't confirm or deny these reports."
At least it works on mine.
isn't that a sign of lack of focus? the same that afflicts google now?
...the Zuck will make it the only way to access facebook. He'll make another truck load of money selling 1 billion devices, and I'll be able to keep my kids off facebook by not buying them one. Everyone wins.
Do they need to work on it at all?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and put two possible scenarios out there:
1) Facebook makes a phone, and millions of Facebook drones buy it for no reason other than the fact that it's "the Facebook phone"
2) Facebook makes a phone, and millions of Facebook drones buy it because it's the Facebook phone, another few thousand buy it because it's legitimately better hardware.
Now sure, I'm oversimplifying here... but I really feel like they would be just as far ahead to have Samsung rebrand an S III with their logo on it and call it a day. So to that end, I have my doubts about them working on it.
(also, what the hell is with the autocorrection of facebook to Facebook...)
If Facebook is working on a phone they will learn what Google learned when they released their first phone: customers expect and demand customer support. Facebook is not prepared to provide customer support any more than Google was.
First I tried Apple and it didn't let me move my music around, then I tried Android and it didn't let me upgrade, then I tried Windows Phone and it went flat in a day, now I can try Facebook and it won't let me keep my privacy. I wish I still had my old Nokia 3310 now...
I'd steer clear of any smartphone that FB had a hand in making. I have a FB account, but I also have my PC setup in such a way that when I log out, FB gets NOTHING from me. With a FacePhone(tm), I'm sure there would be all kinds of things embedded into it that track everything you do so they can get better information for the market trolls (their real customers).
Google is at least transparent with the information the stock flavors of Android have access to, and make it (relatively) easy to keep your information as exactly that - your information. The FB version I'm sure would be full of trackers that you can't turn off or uninstall, because that would make it "just another phone" and not a FacePhone(tm).
Come to think of it, it will probably sell like crazy to the idiots who get a kick out of broadcasting every excruciatingly annoying detail of their empty lives to everyone on the Internet...
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
I wonder what THAT license agreement is going to look like...
In an age of quickly evolving smartphones, where today's hottest releases are soon forgotten, Facebook is blowing IPO money on this.
Does anyone even remember the HTC ChaCha??
This makes as much sense as Facebook announcing they're going to build a PC.
Why on earth would you do such a thing?
Just an app? Facebook IS an app!
A tip for anyone from facebook who's watching - if you want to get into hardware, at least go make a enterprise applicance for people wanting to organize their companies - privately - around social media. Throw in some storage and then negotiate the tie-ins to the bigger infrastructure to keep the advertisers happy.
But a phone? Seriously?
..don't panic
In anyone buying a Facebook-branded phone, I mean. I can understand why Facebook might want to offer their own phone - a lot of people use their mobile app on iOS and Android, and yet Facebook doesn't have carte blanche access to that user's personal information and habits.
But Facebook, popular as it is, only does a few things - and the mobile app already handles those functions reasonably well. It's hard to see them offering a compelling reason to pick up a Facebook-branded phone. I'm sure some Slashdotters will smugly refer to "sheeple" and "mindless Facebook drones"; but in reality it's unlikely there are enough of those to make this idea a commercial success.
#DeleteChrome
I read the summary title as "is anyone able to use Facebook on a smartphone?". Now if only the bank encouraged napping...
Misleading article.
Facebook has resumed its stealthy efforts to create a smartphone
OK so they're writing OS code, talking to RF designers about antenna design, selecting the appropriate display technology/hardware, designing yet another hopefully non-patent infringing on-screen keyboard.
Now compare that to:
collaboration with HTC on a phone which will probably be Android-based
Oh they're just picking a winner and slapping their name on it. Not creating a phone at all.
Its the difference between inventing a completely new clothing technology like "the tee shirt" and calling it "the facebook shirt" vs taking a tee shirt off the rack, silk screening the FB logo on it, and calling that "the facebook tee shirt". I believe my wife has a "facebook pen" not sure how she obtained that, anyway FB merely silk screened their logo on an existing pen, they did not invent the technology of the ballpoint pen. Another way to look at it is "creating a baby" means taking pre-natal vitamins for nine months and eventually squirting out a genetically similar copy of mom (more or less), "creating a baby" does not mean the process of legally changing an adopted babies name.
Frankly if my wife wants a "facebook" phone the best solution is to pick out the best phone, then purchase a FB sticker and paste it onto the back.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Well, Facebook could just go out and pick up RIMM for the price of six photo apps (give or take - there may be another 1/2 app in premiums). However, they probably wouldn't have the slightest idea what to with a profitable company that generates $18B in revenue every year.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The one where they build it w/o any customer feedback and stuff it full of things that no one wants and no one can easily work or use. Then publish no recognizable upgrade plan or strategy to move forward. Last but not least don't have any customer service or tech support apart from simply telling callers that it's not their problem but, for a small annual subscription they'd be happy to add your name to the email list of sales initiatives.
for the FaceHouse. Automatically "checks you in" when you walk through the front door. Updates your Timeline with a graph of your daily shower times, for easy comparison with your friends. Knows exactly what you stock your fridge and pantry with so that it can appropriately target fridge-front ads at your specific buying habits. Senses when you've been sitting at your computer for over two hours playing a game and calls the Facebook-sponsored pizza place for you to have a pizza delivered. (As specified in the Snack Delivery settings section of your Preferences. Default reset to Maximum Delivery Mode as of March; users can of course change it back if they manage to see this notice, find the settings dialog, and then check the appropriate boxes three separate times so that Facebook knows they're really sure.)
And of course everyone will want a FaceHouse. I mean, why wouldn't you? Do you have something to hide?
Yahoo has a much more diverse array of services though. Facebook basically has a platform API for making stuff that works on facebook. Yahoo has tie ins to e-mail (real e-mail), finances, travel shopping, internet search, maps, music players, TV translations, jobs personals etc. They do (and did) a hell of a lot more than facebook.
I'm not really sure what facebook could do with a phone. They're a software on top of something company, google had to buy an operating system company to make android. I can't really see Facebook having a whole lot of traction making its own operating system to compete with Apple and Google. A Facebook branded phone sure, but who cares? You could put a facebook logo on a pair of speakers because they aren't in the 'music' business, I'm not sure that means much. They could make just an Android phone, again, why?
I could see them wanting a developer phone, or developer tools, say a phone that can boot multiple versions of android (and Windows Phone 7/8), can emulate screen sizes etc. That could be a very interesting (and very lucrative) project, especially if you tie it to mobile services hosting (think amazon cloud), that works efficiently anywhere in the world. It's a decidedly developer product, but could generate revenue per app/user anywhere, and then the facebook 'app' is really just a demo. But trying to enter the consumer phone space because they have one icon of the 200 or so on my phone doesn't really seem like a great plan, and I can't seriously imagine anyone there thinking it's a great plan.
I heard a rumour that they might look to buy out opera. It's probably a rumour, but opera is big in the mobile space. I guess that would give them a mobile browser... but why? I can see ways that facebook could use it's cash pile to make money on mobile, certainly buying opera could do that, but I'm not seeing a lot of ways facebook could make the facebook social network and privacy invasion service make money on mobile without ads. Which doesn't require apple engineers or a joint project with HTC.
Is Facebook Working On a Smartphone?
I seriously doubt I'm the only person in here that read this headline and thought it was another complaint about how shitty their iOS app is. Heh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of things Facebook could be doing to increase revenue. Building a smart phone is not one of them. Facebook is reminding me of Microsoft: some early standing on the shoulders of giants and good timing on being second to market, then total bust on later creativity.
Facebook has identified the lack of screen real estate on mobile devices as limiting their revenue growth. So their solution is to come out with their own phone with a larger screen? This reminds me of Microsoft's solution to Google's competition by coming out with Bing. I dunno, maybe this lack of creativity comes from the constraints of being a public company, but nevertheless it's a lack of creativity.
Facebook should embrace the smartphone rather than fight it. Along with limited screen real estate comes continuous connectivity and more frequent interaction. Facebook should improve its ad-serving algorithm and present users with one good ad at a time instead of a panoply of irrelevant ads. Here are some ideas for you Facebook execs out there:
1. Nice idea to make a default Facebook page for every Wikipedia entry. But they're not only all dead, they're also all locked! Why not create an automatic discussion group out of every one of those pages instead of waiting for a masochist to claim ownership of it? Then people would be more inclined to Like those pages/groups instead of ignoring them. And then Facebook would be able to create an even better profile on each user.
2. When there is a quotation on a Facebook group dedicated to an author, how about an Amazon affiliate link to buy the book from whence it came?
3. Expanding on #1 above, how about a DMOZ-style human-edited directory of Facebook interest pages? User interests could be determined by which portion of the DMOZ tree the user focuses on, as well as of course also encouraging users to express their interests by joining additional groups.
4. Buy Yelp! or one of the other city guides. Facebook needs to not only know more about its users to serve more relevant ads, it needs to know what its users' desires are when they have them and are actually searching (the advantage Google has over Facebook -- e.g. GM and Facebook didn't know when users were actually in the market for a car).
5. Allow advertisers to target fans of any given group, not just the groups/pages they own! Extending that, allow advertisers to select whether to have their ads displayed when users are actually on that group page.
In short, Facebook needs to think, "I have room for one ad; what is the one ad I will show this user right now?" I remember Facebook used to show only one or two ads at a time. Now they show five or six. More of the same. Lack of creativity.
It's hard to imagine Facebook wanting their own OS, when they could more easily follow the 'android with the manufacturer's crap UI customizations on top' route. (Or do the same with whatever they are calling the twitching corpse of Maemo these days)
If(and it's kind of a big if) they did want their 'own' phone, rather than just shipping applications for other phones, I'd expect something along the lines of Amazon's effort. Minimal or nonexistent changes to the boring under-the-hood OS stuff, fully branded interface on top and a hardware layout suited to the dominant use cases desired by Facebook.
I wouldn't hold my breath on the 'developer phone' concept. If you just need basic emulation of screen sizes and OS versions, the SDKs for the respective products will do that in software right from the comfort of your workstation. If you need nitty-gritty testing-of-fucked-up-OpenGLES-edge-cases-on-Android-2.3-devices-with-Mali400-GPUs, you don't just need "a developer phone" you need either a huge stack of the things, or some PC-sized device containing a frankenstein's monster of ARM SoCs and peripherals from the past five years of phone development up to the present...
Given the economics of mass production, I suspect that 'developer phone' will continue to mean "the phone the developer owns" for small-timers, a stack of purchased or gifted by platform vendors handsets for the more serious players, along with emulator testing for more basic UI reflow and screen size stuff.
You know, opt you in, when you opt out, recategorize it, and since it's a new category, opt you in to the new category by default; wash, rinse, repeat.
"By default, you are opted in to share your GPS information; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a new category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'location'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a new category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'position'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'venue'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'place'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'travelogue'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'iternarary'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'orienteering'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called '10-20'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it."
"We now have a category of information which we have opted you in to share by default called 'safety monitoring'; you are permitted to opt out after you realize we are collecting it." ...
-- Terry
Not to mention that there already is a Facebook phone. Information about it is right now buried underneath articles for the current story, but I saw it advertised a while ago by either HTC, LG or one of the other Asian smartphone makers. It basically was an Android with a UI designed to make updating and reading Facebook very easy.
Not sure what Facebook could add to that effort, outside of more space for ads.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's hard to imagine Facebook wanting their own OS, when they could more easily follow the 'android with the manufacturer's crap UI customizations on top' route. (Or do the same with whatever they are calling the twitching corpse of Maemo these days)
It wouldn't be hard for them to do both. Have their own OS which is an Android customization. Google has a weak license on Android, which leaves them open for robbery. Facebook can either make private branch of Android, or, if they are really clever, they can make a copyleft branch which will make it impossible for Google to incorporate back Facebook improvements whilst Facebook can still take Google ones and benefit from community involvement.
This would leave Facebook in a good situation since they would have the strongest O/S and none of their major competitors would want to touch it. I often wonder why Nokia didn't go for this strategy; however I guess they always failed to understand open source and never opened up enough to benefit from it. Facebook has more experience in this area.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
a phone that is Yahooed or even a phone that is verizoned. I want a phone. If i want to put facebook, yahoo, verizon stuff on my phone then I will do it. I dont see why companies are trying to come out with their own versions of phones that are supposed to be agnostic. We dont need any more walled gardens.
You must not have an iPhone.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
TL;DR - Don't care.
Yet concerned enough to post.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
when i first added my facebook account to my android it imported all contacts who had shared their phone number with me.
if i go into contacts and type the first few letters of their name(usually takes about 3 to get them to the top of selected list) then i can just hit call if i want to call them.
i don't see how facebook could improve on this.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig