7 Comments »When it was revealed last week that Facebook has no intention of supporting the Android platform, there was a ton of buzz generated in the blogosphere and I said that it was a horrible business decision by Facebook. I still stand by that position but one thing that had previously been discussed but sounded like fantasy was the idea of a Facebook phone.
While the company doesn’t necessarily have enough resources to develop the Facebook phone, partnering with an external company that wants to do much of the work makes a lot of sense. Considering that Facebook ignited the social platform wars, it wouldn’t be a far-fetched idea for the company to have a Facebook phone which is part of the mobile platform wars.
If Facebook is truly the platform for sharing and communication on the web, mobile presents a significant risk in that mobile activity could make web-based social networks practically obsolete. Well at least in theory. Anyways, even entertaining the possibility of a Facebook phone is a significant one and it’s something I previously wouldn’t have done, at least not until today.
Today I saw that 3 Mobiles, a U.K. based mobile provider, is announcing a new phone on November 13th which will “change the way that you use Facebook on your phone.” That would have been a significant statement a year ago but following the launch of Facebook for Blackberry and the Facebook for iPhone it doesn’t seem that significant.
My initial assumption is that 3 mobiles is trying to drum up some buzz about their service. Honestly, I’ve never heard of the company prior to today but then again I don’t live in the U.K. Could this company somehow have partnered with Facebook for releasing the mobile Facebook platform? I doubt it, and I have nothing to prove otherwise.
For the time being I’ll at least entertain the idea of a Facebook phone though. Since the industry is going through a substantial amount of change domestically I still have hopes for a Facebook mobile platform. Do you think there will be a Facebook phone? Is the one being advertised by 3 Mobiles going to be the “official” Facebook phone?
that sounds fun
“If Facebook is truly the platform for sharing and communication on the web, mobile presents a significant risk in that mobile activity could make web-based social networks practically obsolete.”
I highly doubt it. But why would facebook care even if it did take people away from the web (read-sitting at a desk in front of a computer)? That doesn’t put them at risk for losing business, does it? You can still have mobile ads and all of the other goodies, and if there’s to be a mobile device designed for fb, you can bet it will have rich html browser capabilities, which will allow the advertisers to do their thing.
I think it would be cool to see a facebook phone-so long as it has infra red, because I need it to open lock boxes. Bring it on.
-Jerry
I think 3 was one of, if not the first company to bring 3G to the UK. I remember seeing ads for video calls (on 3) in the UK back in 2003.
But it is pretty crazy that they are advertising a phone based on Facebook use. Either it is bad marketing or they really do have something fancy going on with Facebook.
With MSFT having invested $240M in FB, is this really a surprise? Android represents a serious competitive threat to WinMo. That said, Facebook will continue its mobile strategy through Hutch/3 and others… check out the Skypephone and that should give you a sense of where they’re taking their social networking mobility strategy.
I discovered a few articles and it would appear that the INQ phone from 3 (three) will have tighter integration with facebook chat, messaging and skype as well.
Perhaps they have hyped up their press releas somewhat, it’ll be interested to see.
You can see the phone itself here http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/10/3s-inq-to-hit-the-mobile-scene-with-facebook-friendly-inq1/
Mike Ashworth
Marketing Coach and Consultant
Brighton and Hove, Sussex, UK
http://michaelashworth/wordpress.com
This is pretty obviously only a cut above SPAM.
[...] in October I wrote about the upcoming release of the Facebook phone by 3 Mobiles, a mobile provider in the U.K. Today, the company announced it and it’s pretty [...]