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Personal disclosure - I'm not interested in a Facebook phone in the slightest (mostly for privacy concerns). I think this is an interesting concept. Let's assu

Personal disclosure - I'm not interested in a Facebook phone in the slightest (mostly for privacy concerns). I think this is an interesting concept. Let's assume it is in fact a total fork of Android, in essence, a "Facebook Phone". I really think (as big as Facebook is) they will have a hard time with this. I'm not sure there is space for another type of device - even if it is a massive consumer brand. I get the sense that a lot of people use Facebook for it's utility... but I think it has lost it's "cool factor" with the general public. I can't see a lot of people thinking "man - I really want deeper integration with Facebook!" Isn't the FB app good enough for most people?

EvanKelly 13y ago
Don't forget that Facebook owns Instagram as well. My non-tech friends (most of them) use exactly 2 apps regularly on their phones. Facebook and Instagram. I'm not sure any of them would jump at a Facebook branded phone, but I think a phone with Instagram in mind as the key feature (e.g. an awesome camera, integrated filters, not sure what else) might strike a chord with some of my friends. EDIT: Almost forgot about Vine. That seemed to blow up in popularity in my demographic recently here in Hawaii. if Facebook owned Vine, they would have the holy trinity of apps.
- Mahn 13y ago
  > if Facebook owned Vine, they would have the holy trinity of apps. Just for the record, Vine belongs to Twitter, so don't count on that happening any time soon :)
  - niggler 13y ago
    "don't count on that happening any time soon :)" If Facebook offered 20B for Twitter, would Dorsey et al sell?
    - Mahn 13y ago
      Forget it, if there was a time when Facebook could have bought Twitter that might have been 4-5 years ago, but that ship sailed for good.
      - libayrian 13y ago
        twitter is the more valuable company long term imo
    - klox 13y ago
      Well considering they don't even have half of that in cash (even post-IPO) it would be an impressive proposition.
Total_Meltdown 13y ago
I honestly don't know anyone who actually likes Facebook. My group of friends and I continue to use it because there just isn't any better way for us to stay in touch at scale on a day-to-day basis, and nobody really cares enough to put up with the fragmentation that moving to a different network would cause. So it's in this weird middle ground of being too important to give up outright, but not important enough to bother actually fixing.
- niggler 13y ago
  "I honestly don't know anyone who actually likes Facebook." That's the thing I've never understood. On the one hand, on the nightly news Facebook is discussed as if everyone has an account (and that privacy changes actually matter to most viewers). On the other hand, none of my close friends use facebook.
  - nsmartt 13y ago
    >none of my close friends use facebook I'd say you're lucky. Most of my friends use Facebook. I refuse, so I'm out of touch with most of them. I figure if we aren't willing to keep in touch in other ways, our friendship isn't holding up very well anyway.
    - niggler 13y ago
      I like (the seemingly lost practice of) calling and meeting friends face-to-face
  - jonursenbach 13y ago
    Stop living in a vacuum. One billion people have a Facebook account. It's possible that your close friends are not in that group, but the average person on Earth does, in fact, use Facebook.
    - niggler 13y ago
      "One billion people have a Facebook account." " the average person on Earth does, in fact, use Facebook." The population of the earth exceeds 7B (http://www.census.gov/population/popclockworld.html http://www.census.gov/population/popclockworld.html) so in fact the average person on Earth does not use facebook *unless you live in a vacuum where 1/7 counts as half
MatthewPhillips 13y ago
We know that people don't like social login buttons because they believe using them will cause stuff to be posted on their behalf. I can imagine the same fear with buying a Facebook phone. "Jill just chatted with Tom, they discussed their sex life."
- bsimpson 13y ago
  Jill's boyfriend is going to be so pissed.
hkmurakami 13y ago
A big part of buying behavior for phones is the carrier retail outlets pushing the phones onto potential buyers. Facebook, like Amazon, is a company deriving revenue from its ads and content (virtual currency, etc). They could afford to sell the phones to carriers "at cost", at which point the carriers will have a HUGE incentive to sell the phones. Now of course, if they sell at 0 margin to the carriers, HTC won't be happy. But HTC is not doing well at all in terms of phone sales, and perhaps they'd be willing to sell the phone to carriers at very low margins (kind of like how LG, lagging in sales and design inspiration, partnered up with Google and sold a device, the Nexus 4, for very very cheap). In such a case, FB phones could actually sell a decent amount.

EvanKelly 13y ago

Don't forget that Facebook owns Instagram as well. My non-tech friends (most of them) use exactly 2 apps regularly on their phones. Facebook and Instagram. I'm not sure any of them would jump at a Facebook branded phone, but I think a phone with Instagram in mind as the key feature (e.g. an awesome camera, integrated filters, not sure what else) might strike a chord with some of my friends. EDIT: Almost forgot about Vine. That seemed to blow up in popularity in my demographic recently here in Hawaii. if Facebook owned Vine, they would have the holy trinity of apps.

Mahn 13y ago
> if Facebook owned Vine, they would have the holy trinity of apps. Just for the record, Vine belongs to Twitter, so don't count on that happening any time soon :)
- niggler 13y ago
  "don't count on that happening any time soon :)" If Facebook offered 20B for Twitter, would Dorsey et al sell?
  - Mahn 13y ago
    Forget it, if there was a time when Facebook could have bought Twitter that might have been 4-5 years ago, but that ship sailed for good.
    - libayrian 13y ago
      twitter is the more valuable company long term imo
  - klox 13y ago
    Well considering they don't even have half of that in cash (even post-IPO) it would be an impressive proposition.

Total_Meltdown 13y ago

I honestly don't know anyone who actually likes Facebook. My group of friends and I continue to use it because there just isn't any better way for us to stay in touch at scale on a day-to-day basis, and nobody really cares enough to put up with the fragmentation that moving to a different network would cause. So it's in this weird middle ground of being too important to give up outright, but not important enough to bother actually fixing.

niggler 13y ago
"I honestly don't know anyone who actually likes Facebook." That's the thing I've never understood. On the one hand, on the nightly news Facebook is discussed as if everyone has an account (and that privacy changes actually matter to most viewers). On the other hand, none of my close friends use facebook.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  >none of my close friends use facebook I'd say you're lucky. Most of my friends use Facebook. I refuse, so I'm out of touch with most of them. I figure if we aren't willing to keep in touch in other ways, our friendship isn't holding up very well anyway.
  - niggler 13y ago
    I like (the seemingly lost practice of) calling and meeting friends face-to-face
- jonursenbach 13y ago
  Stop living in a vacuum. One billion people have a Facebook account. It's possible that your close friends are not in that group, but the average person on Earth does, in fact, use Facebook.
  - niggler 13y ago
    "One billion people have a Facebook account." " the average person on Earth does, in fact, use Facebook." The population of the earth exceeds 7B (http://www.census.gov/population/popclockworld.html http://www.census.gov/population/popclockworld.html) so in fact the average person on Earth does not use facebook *unless you live in a vacuum where 1/7 counts as half

MatthewPhillips 13y ago

We know that people don't like social login buttons because they believe using them will cause stuff to be posted on their behalf. I can imagine the same fear with buying a Facebook phone. "Jill just chatted with Tom, they discussed their sex life."

bsimpson 13y ago
Jill's boyfriend is going to be so pissed.

hkmurakami 13y ago

A big part of buying behavior for phones is the carrier retail outlets pushing the phones onto potential buyers. Facebook, like Amazon, is a company deriving revenue from its ads and content (virtual currency, etc). They could afford to sell the phones to carriers "at cost", at which point the carriers will have a HUGE incentive to sell the phones. Now of course, if they sell at 0 margin to the carriers, HTC won't be happy. But HTC is not doing well at all in terms of phone sales, and perhaps they'd be willing to sell the phone to carriers at very low margins (kind of like how LG, lagging in sales and design inspiration, partnered up with Google and sold a device, the Nexus 4, for very very cheap). In such a case, FB phones could actually sell a decent amount.