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Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

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Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#51

I'm probably going to be dead wrong about this (based on my track record), but I think this will be a total-loss. Facebook is not a hardware provider any more than google is, if google can't put the N1 out there and make it work I have a hard time to understand how a site like facebook would be able to. They should concentrate on improving their applications on existing mobiles in stead of rolling out a mobile of the…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#52
So the protocol seems to be that strong web platforms want to themselves loosen up their dependence on their OS platforms: browsers, operating systems, etc..., so taken to an extreme the right thing to do is build a hardware platform? A little extreme, no?

It makes for a good plan B, but who thinks that creating yet another competing platform in the mobile space is a good thing for Facebook, at this point? Right now they have a very comfortable position on iPhone, Android, and Phone 7, with the biggest risk for platform subversion coming from Google. That still leaves them two viable platforms on mobile, with virtually no conflicts of interest coming from Apple, and possibly none from Microsoft either. (Okay, Ping, but I don't think Apple's ambitions for Ping are anything beyond boosting iTunes sales.) Now not only will they introduce another platform, but they will turn their existing platforms hostile against them. It's the kind of behavior that will land Bing as the default operating system in future releases of iPhone.

Possible responses: a Facebook phone OS might push Google to do a deep Google Me integration into Android, thus forcing most Android users to at least give Google Me a try, which hurts Facebook. It might force Apple to make Mobile Me free, and then integrate deep photo sharing and commenting into iPhoto and iOS. Since a plurality of college students own Macs and iPod touches already, Apple has very powerful platform control that can cause trouble for Facebook should Facebook be perceived as a threat to iOS. I don't see either of these response scenarios being particularly profitable for Facebook.

This can get very, very nasty. As they said in Godfather, "Nobody wants all out war."

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#53
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

Google has a phone and an upcoming SN-type-project in the works.

Apple has a phone and attempted a music SN.

FB has only a social network.

It seems like it could be a step in the right direction for FB, even if just to be able to compete with Google Me + Android integration

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#54
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

FB has the most complete contact list for a lot of people. It would be pretty cool if my phonebook ran off this and auto updates itself when people change their numbers.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#55
post #53
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

Google has a phone and an upcoming SN-type-project in the works. Apple has a phone and attempted a music SN. FB has only a social network. It seems like it could be a step in the right direction for FB, even if just to be able to compete with Google Me + Android integration

You're line of thinking is I think quite similar to Google's. Google seems to have this mindset of having no dependence on any outside party.

I can understand this from Google as it fits into their internet commoditization goal.

Apple's SN is all about selling more music, which is a core business for them. But to compare Apple and Google, Apple doesn't have a search engine.

WRT Ping, it's two biggest problems are:

1. Lack of FB integration; and

2. It's tied to an app (iTunes).

Apple wants (1). Betas had Facebook Connect. Rumour has it Facebook had "onerous" terms for the integration so it got killed. Lack of it is a huge problem. But that should tell you something: Apple needs FB because FB owns the much-vaunted social graph.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#56
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

FB has the most complete contact list for a lot of people. It would be pretty cool if my phonebook ran off this and auto updates itself when people change their numbers.

It would. I currently use my Gmail contacts for this. Android integration is excellent. iPhone integration is decent.

To borrow a term I heard from Mark Suster though, it's a FNAC (feature, not a company).

Think about the supply chain, inventory management, retail distribution, OS development and so on that would need to go into this. I simply don't believe the business case for an FB phone exists. What's more, I don't believe FB believes it is either.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#57
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

Sure some juicy rumours to awaken speculators interest as facebook IPO is drawing closer ...

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#58
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

FB has the most complete contact list for a lot of people. It would be pretty cool if my phonebook ran off this and auto updates itself when people change their numbers.

The blackberry facebook app attempts this, but it's not actually that useful. Variations in spellings of names confuse it, the 'type' of number (work, mobile etc.) can cause duplicates and a lot of my friends no longer store any useful contact details on facebook due to privacy concerns.

Some of these might be implementation issues, but I still don't think that even working perfectly it would be a killer feature for a phone.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#59
post #57
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

Sure some juicy rumours to awaken speculators interest as facebook IPO is drawing closer ...

What's funny is that when I saw the title I immediately assumed it was a TechCrunch "article" (meaning "linkbait"). And of course it is.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#60
post #50

I don't buy this at all. Apple has always been a hardware and software company with a very specific philosophy about user experience being everything. The digital music revolution gave Steve Jobs the opening to create the iPod that basically resurrected the company. That ply has been extended into phones and mobile computing. Google is (from a revenue perspective) a search and advertising company. Their business mode…

A phone could give FB plenty of new chances to capture data. What if, instead of sending a text message to someone, the FB phone sends a FB message or initiates a FB live chat session with them instead. If the FB phone became ubiquitious enough, they could challenge the space currently owned by texting (which would be really annoying for developers and the market, but great for FB). FB locks everyone in, AND they get to use all that social data too.
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