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If that doesn't merit a big fat "meh", I don't know what does.

And is their address seriously "1 hacker way"? Yeesh.
 
From TheVerge:

"Update: The "home" in the invitation could be a reference to the home screen. The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is working on an Android app that displays information from your Facebook account on your home screen, in an effort to increase the total amount of time that people spend interacting with its service. The app will reportedly make its debut on an HTC device, but could be ported to other phones in the future, provided manufacturers make certain tweaks to their software to give Facebook the necessary hooks."

Looks like it's just an interactive widget then?
 
... Isn't Tumblr older than Facebook? And substantially less popular? I have a Twitter account that I never use just so I can see when people are talking about me... For a blog I chose to get Wordpress instead.

Not for high schoolers. The past year, year ad half is all about Tumblr.
 
A "stripped-down version of Android" in the same vain as Amazon's? No thanks.

Even worse, Facebook will be collecting a lot of data from its phone users, which is really concerning.

Really? Google has been doing it for a decade. They even scan your email to get information about you. If you're worried about anyone, worry about Google.

That's why I do worry about Google. I don't use anything Google for that exact reason. Facebook is slowly becoming this bad. If ol Zuckerburg goes any more crazy with the stealing our information I'll have to leave facebook as well.

----------

Took me about 10 tries before I understood what this title was trying to say. Am I dumb?

No. Misleading article titles are often hard to understand and decipher what is really being said.
 
This is particularly interesting not just because it's a hot property. Last year, Mark vehemently pushed aside rumors about a phone, remember? If they do end up with their own Android-flavored phone, it's gonna be interesting to see how it does at the market.
 
What will be interesting is how FB handles the whole ownership experience.

Will this be direct sales (like the Nexus line)? Channel partners so you buy a FB phone at an AT&T store? Up to this point, FB doesn't have much experience with customer service, and no experience dealing with physical product vs. a company like Amazon (and even Amazon's direct/phone based support services are so-so).
 
I wouldn't want a Facebook phone. Hell, I try to stay away from Facebook by all means possible.

I totally agree. But there are tens of millions of teens, college students, and 20-somethings that use facebook all day long. A smartphone with a Facebook OS would be very sale-able to these demographics.
 
No intention of earning anything significant. iAds is about making iOS more appealing to the consumer. This is to be accomplished by having the ads be less annoying and intrusive, all the while making the ads that people do click on more feature-rich and enjoyable.

So, you're saying that Apple's iAd is just as consumer-hostile and exploitative as Google's ad business?

You can't seriously believe this! :rolleyes:

Wow. That level of loyalty as a teeny bit creepy.
 
facebook can barely get their website to work properly, let alone release an actual phone. I'm going to laugh hysterically at this.
 
I don't think this will be about a Facebook branded phone. Thinking just some new apps, or refreshed apps. Nothing more.
 
Talk about creating a product for all the wrong reasons. How great of a user experience can you expect if the only motivation behind the product is to capture more marketing data from you?
 
You guys are crazy. I hear everybody screaming about innovation yet you don't appreciate what FB is bringing to the table. I mean, seriously. I would give my left testicle for a dedicated button that would allow me to water my FarmVille crops!
 
I think it's time for Facebook to change its name to Adbook. Why keep up the pretense?
 
People are already becoming restless and wanting to leave. The only reason people are still on Facebook is because everyone else is a member. This would have sold a ton around 2008-2009.

Really?? I'm not seeing this at all. Just because your life doesn't revolve around Facebook 24/7, doesn't mean people want to leave it. :rolleyes:
 
it's not incorrect, b/c that is what Google indirectly does. their very nature of existing is to acquire information about you via mechanisms such as Gmail, Google+, Google Calendar, and all of the other apps and services they provide in the pull down menu list on the top of your Google Account.

they will not take specific content extracted from emails and attach it to your name and sell that as a data mining package. but what they do is extract, categorize, and sell a data analysis to advertisers as sales pitches of "why you should advertise with google" and offer specific tailored advertisement packages that allow companies to then acquire the data themselves via click-through ads and cookie tracking advertising

proclaiming Google's innocence in the debate of online privacy, is in effect ignoring the elephant in the room

After reading at least five of your posts with the same tone...

...is there the slight chance you ever read an EULA of an Apple product?

Apple data mines you - they mine you pretty hard. They tried with Ping and with Genius, but as a matter of fact the new milking cow is the iCloud. They want to know your media consuming behavior - and guess why - to sell you even more media "you like". Because those recommendations are "pure magic".

They also want the control on all your App consuming. Guess why there is so little effort put into things like Logic. They know the sales as their App Store model pretty much details tons of statistic (e.g. how many people convert from free test drive version to full blown, how many people react on price cuts). As vocal as the Logic crowd sounds (and me I'mn included waiting for the Logic overhaul) - Apple knows they don't sell that much licenses and rather work on GarageBand.

If you ever had the chance to use Little Snitch you would know just how many times you Mac calls home. And I personally don't even want to know how often an iOS device calls home and what info is transmitted because technically the EULA pretty much covers everything you do on your iDevice to be transparent to Apple.

Another example: Do you know any protocol on what happens to Siri voice data? Me, I haven't dug into the matter, but feel free to post the official policies on how Apple handles the voice data input, how it is anonymized, stored and archived or when it is deleted. If you don't have any information on what happens with Siri voice data please refrain from accusing Google of collecting voice data - because we all know Siri is only working online, transmitting voice data to Apple's servers and then analyzing the voice input. Siri doesn't work without calling home.

So in short: Apple collects just as much data as Google does.
 
If it is a HTC device, it will be a Google Android sanctioned device. Why?

Remember Acer & Aliyun?
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Here-is-why-Google-blocked-Acers-Aliyun-smartphone-launch_id34535



HTC is still a member of the OHA and in turn is forbidden to fork Android if it wants to carry on selling Android hardware. With the Launch of the HTC One merely weeks away, I doubt well be seeing HTC pull out of the OHA and be left with an unproven Facebook Android fork and Windows Phone in their arsenal.

No,

I have a feeling this will simply be a Facebook integrated Android launcher/homescreen distributed through Google Play. Possibly some app based launches.


I really do doubt we'll be seeing a forked Android/Facebook phone, especially with most big OEMS tied down by being members of the OHA.


Huh? HTC could most certainly create a phone for Facebook for Facebook to then install a forked version of Andrioid.
 
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