Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#61

Post by byoung2 » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:04 PM UTC

cletus wrote: 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…

What sense does a mobile platform make in that context? Absolutely none that I can see. How does it let them capture and control more data?

It opens the possibility for more location-based services, and therefore more location data. I can imagine a mobile "Like" button that when pressed reports your current location a la Foursquare. A location-aware mobile platform would also create some interesting tie-ins with Facebook games/apps. For example, go to Home Depot and hit the "Like" button on your phone and get more fertilizer in FarmVille,

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#62

Post by timdellinger » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:06 PM UTC

Letts' Law: All programs evolve until they can send email.

Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail.

I propose a new law: Every website calling itself a platform will attempt to incorporate the functionality of all other platforms that are popular at the time.

Having a phone for your platform is just another silly functionality that may or may not pan out in the end for any given platform.

It's an inevitable next step for any platform looking to invest in something/anything/i-have-ho-idea-what-do-do-now.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#63

Post by what » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:09 PM UTC

c00p3r wrote: post #26

Mobile-device-as-a-service? Why not, half-billion users is enough to try. Like a Kindle just for one kind of activity - reading, it could something like an iPad with only one big app. Seems line the history repeats itself and we're heading back to the future from an era of general web sites in a universal browser to a closed world of connected devices. ^_^

I think most people want a swiss army knife, a device that can do everything. They don't want to lug around a bunch of devices, each of which does one thing and does it well. That's probably why the iPhone is so popular; It's a phone, mp3 player, camera, browser, everything you can think, except it doesn't have a corkscrew.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#64

Post by cletus » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:15 PM UTC

gilesc wrote: post #60

cletus wrote: 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…

SMS is so ubiquitous because everyone with a (mobile) phone number can use it. IM always had this problem: some of your friends on MSN, some on AIM, etc.

I certainly agree there are opportunities for better FB integration into mobile devices but I don't think that translates to a viable business in making mobile phones (imho).

It's a bit like developing your own OS to compete with Windows because you want a better version of Outlook.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#65

Post by zyb09 » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:47 PM UTC

louislouis wrote: post #54

cletus wrote: 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.

Android phones with HTC Sense UI do this. It's pretty cool, it pulls a bunch of data (E-Mail address, birthday, last status message) and integrates them into your contacts. They also pull the profile image from Facebook and it's displayed when you get called.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#66

Post by vbruucom1 » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 3:51 PM UTC

I dont think if users out there consider fb friend list as their contact list (users add bunch of people they dont even know or they hardly know them). I dont see it as a real smartphone, may be another social networking gadget.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#67

Post by iron_ball » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 4:00 PM UTC

zyb09 wrote: post #65

louislouis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Android phones with HTC Sense UI do this. It's pretty cool, it pulls a bunch of data (E-Mail address, birthday, last status message) and integrates them into your contacts. They also pull the profile image from Facebook and it's displayed when you get called.

My "Google experience" Droid 1 does it too.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#68

Post by js2 » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 4:12 PM UTC

"All we know for sure is that Hewitt and Papakipos are working on something very stealthy together. And we have a source that tells us that stealthy thing is a Facebook phone."

The rest is all Arrington's speculation.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#69

Post by DougWebb » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 4:14 PM UTC

iron_ball wrote: post #67

zyb09 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android phones with HTC Sense UI do this. It's pretty cool, it pulls a bunch of data (E-Mail address, birthday, last status message) and integrates them into your contacts. They also pull the profile image from Facebook and it's displayed when you get called.

My "Google experience" Droid 1 does it too.

So does my Droid 2. I assumed this was part of Android 2.2.

Re: Facebook Is Secretly Building A Phone

#70

Post by ewjordan » Sun, Sep 19, 2010, 4:23 PM UTC

sprout wrote: post #15

I don't understand where they're coming from. Android's Facebook integration is a little rough, but all the problems are with the Facebook application. When it comes to the article's touted benefits of deep integration in the OS - calling a friend, deep syncing contacts, etc, Android does it all already. I have it set to only sync contacts that are already in my phone, but if a friend texts me who has their number on…

You're spot on - I have trouble believing that they're really going to put in all the effort to build an entire OS when they could achieve exactly the same end result by merely finishing their freaking Android app.

Thus far, Facebook hasn't even proven that they can competently develop a mobile app, let alone an operating system. Even if the issue isn't talent, but resource allocation, are we really to expect that they're motivated enough to develop a mobile OS if the mobile experience hasn't been important enough to them until now to even finish their app?