Facebook Smartphone a Dumb Idea, Says Farhad Manjoo

beaverdownunder writes "Farhad Manjoo examines Facebook's rumoured entry into the smartphone market, concluding, 'So what would be the point in using the Facebook phone? Well, remember, it will be cheap. But so are lots of Android phones. If Facebook makes a phone, then, the device will necessarily spark a battle for the low end of the phone market, with each company offering ever-cheaper devices in the hopes of cashing in on some future advertising bonanza. If you're looking for a cheap, ad-heavy phone based on a dubious business model, you should rejoice. Otherwise, try to stifle your yawns.'"

Comments

Will it be easier to manage my farm?

[sgraar]

If so, I'm in.

Re:Will it be easier to manage my farm?

[spire3661]

Im just going to pretend you meant 'server farm'.

Re:Will it be easier to manage my farm?

[flyneye]

Server Farmville?

Disagree

[LingNoi]

Facebook is probably one of the most well known brands in the world. A facebook branded phone would get lots of sales regardless of how well the phone performed.

Re:Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

So is Coca-Cola and McDonalds but I sure as hell wouldn't buy a phone of either of them.

Re:Disagree

[AngryDeuce]

I had the same problem for the short time I was in a commissioned sales position. I simply could not sell people products and service packages that I knew they did not need, a fact that put me squarely on the shit list of the higher-ups in the department. I underwent a lot of "sales training" and "workshops" at their command, the main gist of them being "whatever the customer tells you they need, you tell them they need more and don't stop until they're so pissed off that there is a danger of losing the sale entirely."

As a customer, the "hard sell" always just turns me off, and I've seen first hand how much it turns off the bulk of the general public, so I really wonder where the hell people are seeing the success that warrants this mindset being pushed in the first place. Is it really worth one customer being upsold if we're alienating five other customers in the process? I guess it is to some people, but not to me...

Re:Disagree

[Surt]

Commissioned sales are done exclusively in intensely competitive markets. Why? Because the only money to be made is off the suckers who will fall for high pressure sales. Even if you alienate the other 80% of the market, you're just driving them to your competitors, where their negotiating prowess will make them a net COST to your competitor. As an example, the moment a dealership figures out you are a '500 over dealer price' negotiator, they should stop talking to you. Their net on those deals is risking going negative (and the situation gets worse the longer it takes you to haggle them to that price, so it's best if they can figure you out quickly and send you on your way). That frees them up to focus on the people from whom they can actually extract some profit.

Re:Disagree

[jbengt]

Commissioned sales are done exclusively in intensely competitive markets. Why? Because the only money to be made is off the suckers who will fall for high pressure sales.

My experience is a counterexample. Commissioned sales is the norm in the construction industry, but that does not include suckers who fall for high pressure sales. On the contrary, the sellers relying on commissions are the ones who are pressured. They often help the buyers design the systems and select the equipment they are selling, yet still have to come with the low price under several other suppliers in order to get the sale. The buyers often play the sellers bids' against the others in order to lower the price of the equipment and materials they would prefer - or just go with the cheaper crap if they think they can get away with it.

Duh

[AmiMoJo]

Facebook is making a phone because Facebook is a huge brand and people will buy it just because it has the Facebook logo on the case. The target market is clueless Facebook users, the same ones who click "yes" when asked if they would like the latest Zynga crap to invade their privacy and waste their time.

Christ, Farhad Manjoo is thick.

Re:Duh

[rtfa-troll]

Facebook is making a phone because Facebook is a huge brand and people will buy it just because it has the Facebook logo on the case.

The thing about that is that mobile phones are incredibly difficult products. You can easily make a good in shop demo. The first few people may well buy the phone and try it. However, as Microsoft is finding out with Windows Phone, once the early adopters find they have a dud, no amount of marketing can fix that. Your phone is with you all the time; it represents you. If you pull out a Windows based mobile phone you look like a dork and people laugh at you behind your back. Bad mobile phones have a real potential to destroy great brands and have done so many times over; think of Ericsson, Benefon, Sendo, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, etc. etc.Think about how Microsoft has fallen from about 38% smart phone market share to below 5% even with all their resources available. Think about how Nokia is being totally destroyed by their Windows Phone failures.

Facebook can make a success about this, but they will need many things:

• at least one, preferably two of the tier one manufacturers; Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson or even Nokia*
• a fully functional OS platform controlled by Facebook
• a clear way to persuade the manufacturers that Facebook can't use that control against them
• a complete mobile ecosystem
• a way to differentiate strongly from Microsoft and Google
• serious levels of developer involvement and open source efficiency
• top levels of operator buy in

Microsoft is desperate enough that they might give Zuck a deal that looks almost good enough; certainly lots better than the deal Nokia seems to have got. However, I think Zuck already knows he's getting associated with being a loser and so the risk of such a deal would be far too great. In any case, Microsoft having brought Nokia down after the "Burning Platforms" memo; they will have great difficulty delivering even close to most of the points above and there's no real sign that they will ever get it together so there may be nothing that could ever fix their platform.

My feeling? This is possible, but you would have to do something like

• Make an Android fork, but add in WebOS and/or Mer features to make it different
• Move lots of new Android code under the GPLv3 or equivalent in order to stop Google from benefiting in turn
• push lots of Facebook interfaces into the OS
• Make a more iOS like walled garden app store than the Google one.

By going with Android binary compatibility Zuck would guarantee that he starts with the apps base he needs. By going with the GPLv3 he knows he will piss off Google who hates that license more than anything. By pissing off Google he will get allies and differentiation.

In the end, however, it's the operators who will decide. They know that there can be no more than three smartphone operating systems. They had hoped Microsoft would take over Blackberry's and Symbian's position as those two fail. With Microsoft's Skype strategy the operators became afraid that Microsoft will come for them. Now that MS is clearly going to fail in the market, they will be happy to look for a new alternative. A Facebook Android fork would look like a cheap way to get that.

* Motorola ruled out from potential partners since I doubt Google will play. Apple ruled out since I'm pretty sure they won't play. LG, NEC, ZTE etc. ruled out as just too small or too regional.

The FacePhone may be a dumb idea . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . but consumers are even dumber.

who is Farhad Manjoo

[Anonymous Coward]

And why should I care what he thinks?

Re:who is Farhad Manjoo

[snsh]

He's the guy who writes about how everyone doing space-space at the end of a sentence is "wrong".

Basically, he's a famous Troll.

Re:who is Farhad Manjoo

[AthanasiusKircher]

He's the guy who writes about how everyone doing space-space at the end of a sentence is "wrong".

Yep, and that article has been completely refuted as BS, at least in terms of its historical claims and the reasons why many modern publishers have mostly adopted a single-space standard. See, for example: http://www.heracliteanriver.com/?p=324

Basically, he's a famous Troll.

Pretty much.

Not dumb at all

[zome]

This is what facebook will do to their phone. It will create a new phone platform with its own API. This API will be compatible with the phone AND the web. In another word, you write a game using this API once, and it will run in your browser, and on your phone. When people make in-game purchase, facebook gets a cut. This is how they will make money on the mobile platform. They won't make any money if facebook is just an app on any phone facebook doesn't own. This is why MarkZ is worrying.

Given that there are far more facebook users than iphone or android combined, if you are mobile game/app developer, would you write your program using this API? I would. Suddenly, facebook can compete with iOS and android for developers attentions. Something RM and MS are trying so hard to do for sometime.

Caring what Farhad Manjoo thinks a Dumb Idea

[MasterPatricko]

Says random Slashdot poster

A smart phone for less smart people

[swb]

The Facebook phone is for people who look at the Internet and communications through a social media lens. They aren't thinking about a smart phone from a technology perspective or even so much as an app perspective. For them, their phone (likely a feature phone with a slideout keyboard, used primarily for texting) is really a social connector used to send text messages. For them, the internet is the web only and social media almost exclusively. They use Facebook a lot, and Facebook messaging and chat instead of email and IM.

  I think there are a lot of people out there like this, especially in less well educated circles, lower income groups, among younger people and the technologically unsophisticated.

I know people who had computers but seldom used them -- emailing them was never a good idea, they might read email once a week. Once they discover Facebook, they're on the computer all the time, but almost exclusively on Facebook. It's become their predominant computer activity.

Their cell phone? Probably some ancient flip. When their carrier EOLs it and they have to upgrade, they might find a Facebook phone -- subsidized by advertising to keep it cost competitive with the lowest end phones from both a device AND service perspective.

Anyway, I think this locus of groups would probably find a Facebook phone appealing. To anyone else who remotely knows what a smartphone is or has a use for one otherwise? A non-starter. But thinking of a Facebook phone only in terms of direct competition with other phones is a mistake.

Re:Contrarian view...

[arisvega]

FB stock got its ass kicked last week and there is just constant bad press [..] I'm beginning to think that maybe FB stock price may turn upward.

Of course it may. And then it will crumble, and rise again, and so forth in this fashion. Now before you think that I am being a smartass, here is what I mean (albeit a bit off-topic):

I can see four basic components in this company, and by increasing order of importance they are: a) the server hardware, b) the marketing profile, c) the lawyer layer and d) exploitable user data.

The fact that the stock is "rising" or "dropping" in value is irrelevant: what is relevant, is that there is a stock, and that fb is in the stockmarket: it is essentially now an "immortal" in a corporate sense. Fb may very much so change ownership in the future, and perhaps even see a revamp of its logo (as in a "new-and-changed" product), and that may happen a lot: so the core of it, which is what investors are willing to pump money into, which is user data and profiles, will be "immortal" as well.

That alone guarantees that your data will never ever be deleted, as they have become a valuable commodity- and unless you are a "player" in the stockmarket, or a billionaire looking to acquire it, I don't see why you should care about fb stocks.