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Facebook's "Hello" Tells You Who's Calling Before You Pick Up
Mark Wilson writes: When you receive a call you'll usually see the number of the caller, but this may not be helpful in identifying them before you decide whether to pick up. Facebook's answer to this problem is Hello. This new app comes from the Facebook Messenger team and aims to tell you more about the person getting in touch with you even if you don't have their number saved in your address book. Currently available for Android, the dialer app also allows for the blocking of calls from individuals.
Even better than that, it's the same "we'll google the number and put up a name" feature built into recent Android builds anyway.. but with "Facebook" instead of "Google". Given their usual rigour, it will probably work acceptably in 30% of cases in the continental US and be worthless outside of that.
I guess there's a point to the "1532 have blocked this number" except that ALL the people you want to block come from undisclosed numbers/PABX/skype anyway, so ... meh.
Plus, it has the added bonus of feeding back the phone number of everyone that ever calls you to Facebook, because you know, they're not far enough up your ass now.
This is nothing more than facebook wanting phone call data. The advantage for users is almost nonexistent. Its the modern way of stealing (or as they put it in their shiny presentations "harvesting") data.