Facebook to Enter Mobile Phone Market in 2011

marksman said:
You ever look back and remember when a company made their first major mistake?

Hello Facebook.


Maybe Wordpress should make a mobile phone too?
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I think Twitter would be more fitting. Instead of "minutes", you'd have 'tweets' and your calls will last for only 140 seconds! :rolleyes:
 
ellsworth said:
Facebook Movie, Facebook Music, Facebook Phone...
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"Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money is made. Facebook-the T-shirt, Facebook-the Coloring Book, Facebook-the Lunch box, Facebook-the Breakfast Cereal, Faceballs-the Flame Thrower. The kids love this one." - Mark Zuckerberg
 
Why is this receiving such a heavy bashing when people know virtually nothing about it? I would be so amused if you peeps are wrong and this phone becomes huge. I can't stand such oppressive presumptuousness.

Say what you want about the Zuck but he's 26 and made himself richer than Jobs.
 
I don't believe this rumor .. it doesn't make much sense for Facebook to enter the not very lucrative phone market when Facebook apps are installed on pretty much any dumbphone these days, let alone the full blown apps for smart phones.

T.
 
hwhalers said:
Perhaps it's just a personal annoyance of mine, but this "competition is good" meme got old before it started. In a sense it's (tautologically) true, but so what? Even if these devices weren't based around expensive 2-year contracts that makes it impractical to flip flop between them, crap companies make crap products, with very few exceptions. The sheer number of devices and operating systems doesn't magically advance anything. The vast majority of innovative designs and concepts are produced by very few companies (and, more accurately, small groups inside those companies), and the rest are xerox outfits. Do you honestly think that the caliber of device Facebook would produce would drive the industry to new, innovative heights?
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Well it is not necessarily the Facbook phone that does turn around a whole industry .. it maybe Apple's iPhone though. And in turn Android now pushes iOS in terms of features. I am not sure we would have seen e.g. Facetime or Multitasking without the pressure from Android yet.

"Competition is good" doesn't mean that all competition will generate a truly novel and successful product or idea, but eventually somebody will look at product and think .. if it could do XY, that would be awesome and builds it. And that's when competition becomes great for the consumer, because we, as consumers, get to choose the best product for our needs.
In turn competition also generates a ton of waste products that didn't make it although they may have been really good ideas as well.

More importantly however, without competition everything would stall. Why would a company spend a ton of money on research if they didn't need to fear competitors taking their spot.

T.
 
I could see this being a big seller with teenage girls, some university students and the like... the Facebook addicts!

I can't see it being big out of those markets. 'Grown-ups' will just go for a 'proper' Android, or a Blackberry, or an iPhone.

If it happens they should call it Facepalm though, that would be hilarious!
 
ridiculous

This is about the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. Who is going to buy a phone just for one app?? Based around one social network. Oh yeah, I gave up my iPhone for my FaceBook phone --- but my friend's got a MySpace phone and my other friend a LinkedIn phone so we can't FaceBook-Time chat.
 
Bit late, MacRumors.

This story was on the likes of Mashable and Macworld UK the other day and features updates with quotes from Facebook saying it was false and their focus was improving mobile integration with already available devices.
 
filmantopia said:
Why is this receiving such a heavy bashing when people know virtually nothing about it? I would be so amused if you peeps are wrong and this phone becomes huge. I can't stand such oppressive presumptuousness.
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Me neither, thank you. I'm rather interested in what Facebook Mobile could achieve. The success of Facebook speaks for itself, so why not give it a try to expand to other platforms? As long as there is almost no information available, I'll wait before I turn this down.
 
If they pull this off well it will be a huge hit.
Look at the facebook fanbase, now look at the countless girls (not being sexist it's just my observations) that have bought things like ps3s just to browse facebook. I know many.

If this is flawlessy implemented as part of the phone and not just an add on then I reckon a large part of the facebook community will leap at the chance. Imagine being able to browse facebook, click on someones name and get a drop down menu saying 'call, text, PM, comment, and whatever else there is usually'.


But these rumors were shot down in te news a few days ago if I recall.
 
filmantopia said:
Why is this receiving such a heavy bashing when people know virtually nothing about it? I would be so amused if you peeps are wrong and this phone becomes huge. I can't stand such oppressive presumptuousness.

Say what you want about the Zuck but he's 26 and made himself richer than Jobs.
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oppressive, eh? lol.
 
Fail!

Well this'll just be a massive fail
why are the even bothering, If they need something to do they should Delete Farmville and deal with all the complaints and death threats haha

...also what "does" this have to do with Apple?
 
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kirk26 said:
This was debunked early this week.
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And thank frack it was too. :)

Most smartphone operating systems integrate with Facebook, either natively or via an app. Unless a Facebook phone had some exclusive features not possible on other platforms, i couldnt see where this would go.
 
True or otherwise, I can't see why for teenagers, etc, that a cheap, simple device that has facebook at the centre of it's interface, wouldn't be popular.

Not every kid has the budget for £400 smartphone.
 
Facebook to use Google's Android?

It seems a little strange for Facebook to use Google's Android as the two companies are somewhat competitors.

Let's not forget the fact that Google plans to launch their own service that will aim to supplement -- if not replace -- Facebook.

This would be akin to a rumor of Apple launching a mobile phone, ... using Windows Mobile OS.

With there being several versions of embedded Linux available, such as MonteVista's Linux 6, why would Facebook not build their own "Facebook OS?"
 
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