Do we need a Facebook Phone?
September 24, 2010 Leave a comment
Facebook is building a phone! My commentary follows, but here are some quick bits of the sordid tale:
- Rumors all over last week: “Facebook is building a phone!”
- Gasps from the blogosphere: “Facebook is building a phone?”
- Denial from Facebook: “Facebook is not building a phone!”
- From TechCrunch: “Interview with Mark Zuckerberg on the ‘Facebook Phone’”.
Whiplash anyone? In the news:
- Gigaom: “Facebook Phone: All You Need To Know + New Details”
- Forbes Blogs: “The Company Behind The Facebook Phone”
- Bloomberg: “Facebook Said to Be Working on Phones With INQ for AT&T”
My phone (the HTC Aria with with Android 2.1) has a Facebook application that ships with the handset. In fact, it has two: a decent native Facebook application (© Facebook 2010) for starts, and an HTC product called Friend Stream; essentially a Facebook and Twitter status aggregator / updater. It’s a bit underpowered, but aggregation is always handy, if baseline functionality is met.
When baseline functionality is not met, it’s a shame to have to run two applications to complete a task. As a result, I ignore Friend Stream and interact with the native applications. This further underscores the value of having a non-dedicated device: you can do what you want to do; load and run the applications you want, comment and update when you want. After all, you are the common denominator of your work, private and social lives.
Do we need a Facebook phone? I sure don’t. Do you?
About Michael Coates
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