Charlie over at the Phones4U blog writes about reports that HTC is working with Facebook on an official Facebook phone.
Next.
I’ve set my expectations to way below zero. I most definitely look forward to being utterly amazed and surprised. However I do have to wonder what more you could do with Facebook on a phone beyond what we’ve basically seen already.
I suppose I could have all my photos (and video) uploaded immediately to Facebook by default, rather than having to tap ‘share on Facebook’ on Windows Phone (for example).
It could be a useful technique for Facebook to help show the way for other manufacturers. We shall see. I wonder just how influential an ‘official’ phone can be nowadays given the various offers we’ve seen from the likes of Hutchison’s INQ Mobile or HTC’s own ChaCha with the nice blue Facebook buton.
Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any bigger and more powerful, comes the news that it is strongly considering launching it own phone.
Marky Z’s social network is said to have teamed up with HTC to create the first official Facebook phone.
via Turn Up For The ‘Book: HTC to Build First Official Facebook Phone | Phones4u News & Community.
Dear Facebook: Pls stop, there’s no point on having a fb phone. Just make your platform easier to use everywhere.
So this is the “first official facebook phone”??? really? What were the INQ and the Chacha? “Unofficial”??
Oh well..
Unofficially official?
And which network stocks this an dbecomes a bit-pipe? Can you see AT&T, Verizon, et al swing behind this? And what about the rest of the ecosytem you need? Heck, Nokia needed to pair up, now one handset from HTC is going to change the world on it’s own???
Oh sorry, an HTML5 version of Farmille will save you, of course… {/irony}
*If* this is true, I suspect it’s about Facebook dipping their toes in the water to create a mobile platform a la Kindle Fire.
The more eyeballs and clicks that go through *your* services and *your* ecosystem, the more you’re in control and the more money you make.
If the platform is received even remotely favourably on an HTC handset, I am sure you will see Facebook enticing others like Samsung, ZTE, Huawei et al to produce their own handsets using this platform too.None of these guys like being overly dependent on Google, who now have a pet manufacturer called Motorola, just like Microsoft will have a pet manufacturer called Nokia.