

The Facebook Phone: It's Finally Real and Its Name is Buffy - hornokplease
http://allthingsd.com/20111121/the-facebook-phone-its-finally-real-and-its-name-is-buffy/

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mrspandex
My Windows Phone uses Facebook contacts to augment my contact list and
integrates their Twitter and Facebook updates, shows my Facebook photo albums,
and allows me to check in or post updates to Facebook and Twitter. I'm sure
Android/iOS offer similar functionality.

What more could a Facebook phone launched this late in the game really offer
other than lock-in?

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tobtoh
Whilst I can see why a Facebook Phone looks really promising from FB's
perspective, to me, buying a Facebook phone because I like using FB is akin to
buying a Coca Cola branded and manufactured car because I like drinking
soda/soft drink.

~~~
rewind
A phone is a computer used to access Facebook. I don't see how the car/Coke
comparison is the same. They have nothing to do with each other.

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BvS
Make it a refrigerator instead of a car.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
You know that Coca-Cola does make millions of refrigerators for its
distributors right?

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mahmud
Buffy: The Privacy Slayer.

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latchkey
Does Facebook have the ability to produce software with the required level of
quality necessary to ship in consumer hardware devices?

I've worked with their API's, which are core to their business, and they tend
to be inconsistently implemented, changed at will and have high rates of
failure.

The existing culture of 'whatever, just ship it' would never produce a phone
that is bug free enough to ship.

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seiji
First phone with a php, mysql, and memcache based operating system?

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mortenjorck
Two questions upon which this phone's fate will hinge:

1\. Will it offer at least as cohesively a sharing-centered user experience as
Microsoft's ill-fated Kin? Microsoft may have shot Kin down shortly after
takeoff, but it set the yet-unmet benchmark for a "social phone."

2\. Will it launch with low-priced, youth-targeted data plans from carrier
partners, Kin's fatal omission?

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nirvana
On your second point, how could Facebook make this happen? Every device maker
would like for their device to have low cost data plans... the problem is the
networks realize that is the road to being a dumb pipe, something they're
desperate to avoid.

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gonzo
Either by becoming an MVNO or doing something like Amazon's Whispernet.

~~~
wmf
I could imagine a Facebook MVNO where they sell the data plan below cost and
try to make it up with ads.

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jnhnum1
It's not "finally real" until it's released. According to this article, it's
at least a year away.

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Apocryphon
I don't really understand this because:

1\. The HTC Status already exists 2\. Every single modern smartphone is trying
to integrate multiple social networks more tightly (which includes competing
non-FB networks)

I had previously thought that the Status made sense as something cheap for
kids- like the Kin, and as a test device prior to a game-changer- like the
ROKR. My previously assumption is that FB will either come up with its own OS
(doubtful) or even buy WebOS. To release yet another branded Android phone
seems a bit unrevolutionary from a rising star.

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iradik
And so the Internet gets a little more fragmented...

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colinsidoti
I just wrote about this a few days ago: [http://colinsidoti.com/2011/11/dear-
mark-zuckerberg-re-faceb...](http://colinsidoti.com/2011/11/dear-mark-
zuckerberg-re-facebook-phone/)

Very excited to see the features they plan to build out. Specifically, giving
developers direct access to handsets seems like it would open some cool
possibilities.

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nirvana
I think it really is a mistake for Facebook, and in fact, Google, and
allegedly Amazon, to be making mobile phones.

Apple and Microsoft are different in a lot of ways, but their core business is
making operating systems for personal computers. Apple makes the whole widget,
but Microsoft focuses on the OS and licenses it out. Different business
models, but much the same business.

It's not surprising that Apple and Microsoft, as a result, have the two best
Phone Operating Systems as well as the two most popular Desktop operating
systems.

What is google's core business? Advertising. What is Facebooks? Advertising
What is Amazon's? Retailing

All of these, of course, have some overlap with Apple and Microsoft. Amazon is
increasingly selling digital goods, Microsoft got into the search business (a
failure that is illustrative of my point, btw.)

What is the key value add that Facebook can add to a phone that nobody else
can? Deeper integration with Facebook. Is that compelling? For a phone?
Certainly useful... but why make the tradeoffs?

The same thing is true with Google. The original iPhone shipped with google in
every place it wanted to be-- providing maps, providing youtube video app,
built in, as the only option for search, and consequently, also, the primary
mobile advertising opportunity.

Apple didn't try to keep google out, Apple partnered with google, at a very
high level, and gave google unique access to its device. I cannot think of any
other company whose key products Apple ships as default on the iPhone. Apple's
still shipping google maps (or actually Apple Maps app, backed by google) But,
notice, despite the deep integration of Twitter in iOS 5, Apple doesn't ship
the twitter client.

Even before there was a third party Apps business, Apple gave Google premium
positioning for its services in the OS.

What does google have, fundamentally, to offer to the phone industry that
nobody else can offer? Better search? A better maps app?

As I've pointed out, Apple let google have prime real estate to get that
distribution. It is only after Google decided to compete with Apple that Apple
bought an advertising company, and started buying mapping companies, and
started offering Bing and Yahoo as alternate search engines in Mobile Safari
(or maybe I'm wrong and they're not even doing that, can't remember.)

Success comes form being focused.

Facebook is increasingly becoming very distracting and kinda pointless. The
things my friends share that I care about are buried, and Facebook arbitrarily
decides not to show me many status updates from some of my friends....
meanwhile BS is at the top of the feed all the time.

Google's search results are in a marked decline. The advertising business is
going like gangbusters, but Google is getting less and less useful as a search
platform.

And now they're going to start making their own hardware?

Further, what's the business model? Apple and Microsoft have been very
successful selling operating systems (though Apple packages them with the
hardware.) Nobody has been nearly close to as successful giving away software
for free. Google and Facebook have to plow most of their R&D budget into their
core businesses, so they can't compete (and in googles case, so far haven't'
been able to compete) with Apple (and to a lesser extent, Microsoft) in adding
key features to their phone operating systems.

I think the folly of Apple, trying to make its own desktop CPUs is another
good example. Even when partnered with Motorola and IBM-- two heavyweights--
and a superior technology base-- they were unable to remain competitive with
Intel simply because Intel is able to plow so much money into their CPU
business.

The CPU Business is core for Intel. The OS business is core for Apple and
Microsoft. The devices business is core for Apple and Microsoft's partners. IT
isn't for Google, Amazon or Facebook.

They might be successful making phones, to some extent, but they will be
taking their eyes off the ball when it comes to their core businesses.

~~~
omarchowdhury
"Success comes form being focused."

You yourself would find success in transmitting organized thought if you were
focused on what you write. What the hell is that jumble of words? And why is
it the top voted comment? Is it because of the quantity of characters therein?

The reason why any of these companies are getting into different markets is
because of one thing: _Money._ The fact is, these organizations have a lot of
money already and want to put it work --- the most obvious place to put it
work would be a laterally related market segment.

~~~
ryanhuff
I don't think Google enters the smartphone market simply because there is
money to be made. I have always thought that their motivation for Android was,
at least partially, defensive, as they fight to keep clear any impediments to
consuming their services (ads).

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omarchowdhury
Is the motivation still not money?

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ryanhuff
Of course. Just about everything a corporation does is driven by the pursuit
of profit. However, the rather verbose post you replied to had a point
obfuscated in the jungle of words. Core competency (a company's ethos) is an
important factor. You won't see McDonalds getting into the smartphone business
simply because of money.

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omarchowdhury
"laterally related market segment."

Facebook's core competency is social networking. Mobile devices are one mode
of social networking - it is a logical choice of theirs to create their own
mobile device, strengthened by their brand it would be adopted on novelty
alone; to a global user-base they can reach at little cost seeing as how they
own their own advertising platform.

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funkah
It would be cool to see whether they use all that design talent they've been
snapping up on this project.

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brd
So Zuckerburg et al have reiterated again and again that they are a platform,
that their strategy is horizontal, that they want to be tethered to no
specific device or service.

At least we can sleep soundly knowing the company managing everyone's personal
data is an honest one...?

