Perhaps. But their web interfaces will improve. Both are pretty small companies that will grow.
My main question is: Will something that "feels like Facebook" be what people want on their phones indefinitely? Or will something that feels more like a mobile app/service take over?
Facebook's mobile apps do feel like mobile apps. Sure, Path is prettier, but claiming that it's significantly more usable than mobile Facebook requires some objective substantiation.
That's what makes them money now. But I don't think they will disagree that the future is mobile. And that's where they don't seem to be pushing as strong.
My broader question was: As more time shifts toward mobile, will the dominant social network be something created first for mobile, or will it be Facebook?
So far, FB mobile feels like a pretty unimaginative port of their website, and not the sort of thing that was imagined first for mobile.
Will that be enough, will Facebook change things up, or will it be disrupted by something mobile-first?
I think if there's any challenger to Facebook as the dominant social network, it could well be WhatsApp.
They're gathering a very large network of teenage users, completely avoiding the web, and becoming an alternative to both Twitter and email for group messaging.
When you look at what they provide, it's pretty much everything I use from Facebook, without the noise.
I find the fb_timeline feature strange to use on my desktop/laptop, but it's possible that some permutation of it could be the superior implementation for Facebook's mobile strategy.
I think if I had a bus commute with Internet access I'd do that, too. But I'm on the subway underground, rarely with a seat. iPhone is much more useful in that situation.
