

Why Facebook Will Fail Miserably Building a Smartphone - czzarr
http://stevecheney.posterous.com/why-facebook-will-fail-miserably-building-a-s

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jpxxx
I was onboard until "The Facebook mobile app is absolutely awful – and hasn’t
improved in years. A lot of these reasons are subtle like lack of support for
the Nitro JavaScript engine in native apps which wrap HTML content like
Facebook’s (Apple doesn’t allow this)."

Horseshit. The Facebook mobile app is absolutely awful because Facebook allows
it to be absolutely awful. Look at all of the rock-solid, supremely pleasant,
sync-and-serve social experiences on iOS and tell me exactly why Facebook is a
special case.

Dropped posts, stuttering scrolling, lost comments, photo upload glitches,
punishing load times, punishing layout glitches, nonfunctional UI... none of
this can be laid at Apple's feet. A magical ~JIT Javascript~ wand isn't going
to solve any of this mess.

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drivebyacct2
It's much better on Android, if you ignore the 20 second wait everytime you
open the app or navigate around too much.

The mobile webpage is nearly identical. Minus push notifications, but it
renders instantaneously, scrolls great on my GNex, etc. I just have a Facebook
icon Bookmark to Chrome for Android instead of the Facebook app installed (and
my battery life improves!)

~~~
darklajid
I don't know anything about iOS (or their native Facebook app).

That said, I cannot believe that the Android app is better than anything else.
It's .. sad. I wonder if this thing is build in some random two engineers 20%
time and they usually work with iOS (or .. something else, but not Android)
and really just do this task for the giggles.

I use the website on my device, because the native app fails to provide a
bunch of things anyway - and it's sooooo sloooow..

I know this reads like a rant and it probably is. In fact, I use FB in a
limited way and even there the native client is lacking. It's - ignoring all
emotions for a second - really subpar on every level in my book.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Nah, I'm right there with you, but I'm given to understand, from my iOS-
defensive-friends, that the iOS app is even worse. It has the slowness on the
Android version with intermittent crashes.

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ch0wn
> Google TV’s failures and the storied missteps around Google-branded Android
> smartphones prove this.

Sorry, but what missteps do you mean regarding the Nexus brand?

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joelrunyon
I'm not sure if you remember the Motorola ROKR, but Apple flopped a couple
times before reinventing the phone industry.

Facebook's taken two cracks at it. They've got a massive war chest and one of
the most recognized brands on _earth_ plus 2 failures worth of experience
under their belt.

Sure, mobile's a challenge - but it seems like you've thrown in the towel
already on it. I don't think Facebook has quite yet.

~~~
runevault
Money and experience alone mean nothing. The ability to learn from that
experience is what's important. Based on track records in other areas where
they've been slow to learn (privacy) I'd expect they need to fail a minimum of
4-5 more times before they have any prayer of getting it right.

~~~
joelrunyon
So, they're on attempt #3. Why get them at mad for trying? (it's not like they
can get failures 4 and 5 out of the way without going through #3 first).

Their slow "learning curve" on privacy has been on purpose. They're trying to
reshape how people view "sharing" and are succeeding in doing that w/ almost a
billion people.

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sgt101
"In the game of thrones, you either win, or you die!" Apple is king of the
world (the bit of it that isn't Chinese and has lots of money), it collects
taxes, makes laws, executes peasants (you app store developer, you). Facebook,
Microsoft, Google, these are rich noble families... they want to be king, they
want to live, standing still is not an option - talk to RIM, Yahoo! or
MySpace. This is a bid to break the tax monopoly that Apple has which Facebook
needs to access to monetize mobile.

One small problem - making phones is hard, making phone operating systems is
very hard. However there are 4 options that Facebook has : WebOS, Maemo,
Blackberry 10 and.. Windows Mobile 8.

Hardware - well it is bloody hard, unless you have a lot of cash (errr) in
which case - go thee, go thee to China. There are some very, very, very clever
engineers in China (gee dad?) who if you will give them the volumes, will give
you the kit you want.

The trick isn't going to be making a good phone, the trick will be selling it.

In the Game of Thrones no one gets what they want, but everyone gets
something.

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martythemaniak
Well, if Facebook wants to be really serious about mobile, they can purchase
RIM.

RIM has essentially everything facebook lacks - expertise in building consumer
hardware, carrier relationships, retail channels, top-notch systems engineers,
etc. They are also very cheap, with a current market cap of $5.5B.

~~~
tomkarlo
RIM's been trying pretty hard to build a popular smartphone (in today's
market) without much success. I'm not sure having their phone's "Facebookized"
would make them that much more popular - and it would almost certainly not be
popular with their remaining enterprise base.

Not to mention that my sense of the cultures of these two companies
(admittedly, from the outside only) is that they're about as oil-and-water as
you can get. Buying RIM would mean taking on maybe a billion or more in
inventory risk, plus the risk that you'd see a lot of the talent walk out the
door anyway (something that's been going on for a while now.)

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bpyne
I'm not really sure what FB hopes to gain from trying to elbow their way into
the mobile phone market. The market is pretty well divided between Google and
Apple with MS and RIM mixed in as well.

It seems like there are cheaper ways to improve their users' experience on
existing mobile platforms.

The only non-nefarious reason I can think of is they feel a threat from both
Google and Apple in their area of expertise - social graphs.

Of course, it's possible that it's all a feint on the part of FB to get some
loving from Apple.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/electronics/9301172/Apple-
boss-Tim-Cook-cosies-up-to-Facebook.html)

~~~
cube13
>The only non-nefarious reason I can think of is they feel a threat from both
Google and Apple in their area of expertise - social graphs.

Google, perhaps.

But Apple hasn't made much of an inroad into the social sphere at all. I'm not
sure if it's even going to be something that they're going to consider moving
into, considering the razor thin margins that social network companies make.

~~~
tar
I think they tried Apple tried their hand at social with Ping which has not
really been successful.

However, doesn't iOS now have some kind of special integration with Twitter?
That must be pretty bad for Facebook.

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cube13
iOS does have the twitter integration. I'm not sure why Apple(or Google) and
Facebook haven't worked out a similar agreement, because it's really a win/win
for everyone involved.

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horsehead
I seriously think Facebook is going to collapse soon. It's so overhyped it's
not even funny -- just look to their stocks to see a prime example. So many
people are just itching to get away from it now that it can't last long. We'll
see, of course. But it is soon to be a Myspace, et al.

~~~
ajross
They have cash (quite a bit, post-IPO) and revenue. Companies with cash and
revenue don't collapse, even if their stock is overvalued. Myspace didn't
"collapse" either, though ultimately it lost in the market to a better
competitor.

It's possible Facebook will ultimately lose too, but it won't be because of
their stock value or their being "overhyped". Hell, statistically it's much
more likely that they'll be beaten by a _much, much smaller_ company (though I
guess G+ might do it too).

