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.
...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.
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...
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
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
My guess is that they are targeting the low-end of the market that has a high-end feature phone now but can't afford a traditional smartphone. The kind with a texting keyboard, weak camera and limited internet access via carrier apps.
My guess is the idea is to provide a phone optimized for Facebook and picture taking but with low end enough specs that it can be sold very cheaply.
My guess is that there are a lot of people at this end of the market who use Facebook on PCs and who see a smartphone's primary purpose as being for Facebook or social media and who would take hardware more comparable to a real smartphone even if most of what it did well was Facebook.
Done well, Facebook could create an ecosystem of Facebook apps exclusive to this platform and along with their data mining sell the phones at cost and actually make money on the larger project.
Done poorly, it's a train wreck. Either way, I don't see any kind of Facebook phone taking Apple or Android's place.
They could let HP make it, and call it a FacePalm(tm).
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.
Or blackberry, and call it a BlackFace.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
isn't that a sign of lack of focus? the same that afflicts google now?
Unfortunately, detecting 'lack of focus' is much trickier than just looking at number of products/number of product areas. You both need to consider the possibility that the efforts are part of the same company largely in name(The badge above the door just says who built it or bought it, not uncommon for some largely-financial entity to have their sticker on a herd of operationally-independent companies), and that the efforts in multiple areas are in some way strategic. You also have to consider, of course, the distinct possibility that the company is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks because they don't know what else to do...
In case of 'Facebook Phone', the optimists's reading would go something like this: Facebook already has a substantial investment(through its API, authentication services, and whatnot) in making it possible for 3rd parties to develop on its 'platform' so that it can more efficiently farm users. It also, because smartphones are a major and growing avenue for access to facebook, has an ongoing investment in developing high-quality phone UIs. A "Facebook Phone" project is really just a software project that is an outgrowth of their API/Auth/Payment efforts and their smartphone application efforts, along with some possible hardware spec tweaks(eg. camera, certain hard buttons to speed common facebook operations) and eventually paying an OEM to slap their sticker on it and get it out the door. Best case, it works. Worst case, most of the hard work can be immediately recycled into their existing 'platform' and 'smartphone app' development processes.
Pessimist's reading: Team Zuck has just IPOed at a ridiculous P/E, and it's a known fact that an increasing percentage of their traffic is coming from smartphones that are a bit small to show ads, and for which nobody but Apple and the carriers are making any money. Everybody knows that MOBILE IS THE FUTURE!!!!1!~, so Facebook has to show that they still have it by starting a crash, cargo-cult, attempt to replicate the success of the iPhone, and will flail around for a while, burn some money, and end up hiring HTC/Samsung/the low bidder to puke up a generic Android device with a really shit UI skin and a hardware 'like' button...
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
You must not have an iPhone.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."