Facebook made a big announcement today about their new phone initiative. They had long been rumoured to be working on a phone, and been denying they were working on one for just as long. So some people thought it would just be a new app. But they recently modified their Android app to remove all the suck.
It turned out both sides were sort-of right. They announced a new "home screen" for Android, which will let people see their Facebook stuff without going into their Facebook app. It will come standard on some new phones. The reports I've read haven't been clear but I'm assuming you can also download it too. But the fact that they seem to be stressing the fact that it comes on new phones makes it seem that they'd like to be a major part of your phone purchase decision.
Will it be successful? My first thought is, no. The whole thing makes me think of Microsoft Bob. For you young'uns out there, Bob was a new, easier computer interface for people who found even the then-new Windows desktop too confusing. Instead of the metaphor of a desktop with folders and files and a garbage can, it used the metaphor of a person walking around a house. It sounds foolish to admit this now, but at the time I assumed Bob would become a standard part of computing, much the same way we became stuck with Windows whether we liked it or not.
Of course, it didn't happen that way. Bob was soundly rejected, and came to be the tech industry's equivalent of the Edsel. And that contributed to the widely-held notion that Microsoft can't create any new product on their own, and need someone else - usually Apple - to create the prototype.
Anyway, that's why I'm a little afraid that the Facebook homepage or whatever it's called might be something we're all stuck with, but also why I'm reassured that we won't be. Having said that though, there are a couple of reasons why it might yet work.
In a Wired writeup on it, they emphasize that the Facebook phone will be seen as the easy way to use the Internet, since that is essentially what Facebook itself is: a simpler, easier version of the Internet. That in itself is not a very convincing argument. You know who else had that "Internet, but easier" strategy? AOL. And it worked for them for a while, until people got comfortable with computers and the Internet and found other options. What's more, Facebook users - while not as young and hip as stereotyped - are not exactly the elderly tech-newcomers that were AOL's bread-and-butter.
But Wired's "Facebook makes things easy" article dovetails nicely with another article of theirs that illustrates the shocking disparity between Android and iPhone users. It turns out that although there are twice as many Android users, iPhone users do double the web surfing. That seems to play into the perception that iPhone users are looking for a device that does lots of things, while Android users just buy a phone and don't really know or care what it does.
In that case an Android phone that does things easily and without that fuss of downloading apps and figuring out how they work, could be successful. Add to that the phone makers need for differentiation: they love Android because it's cheap but popular, but they hate the fact that if you make Android phones, you're competing with all the other makers of Android phones making the same product. They wish they could mark up the price for a well known brand the way Apple can, but really they're making the equivalent of a no-name phone. That's why Android phone and tablets have the so-called "crapware": apps and widgets supplied by the manufacturer to try to make their Android phone seem different from their competitor's Android phone. The Facebook homepage would be a great way to make your product to stand out, so you know manufacturers are going to give it the promotion it needs to survive.
It turned out both sides were sort-of right. They announced a new "home screen" for Android, which will let people see their Facebook stuff without going into their Facebook app. It will come standard on some new phones. The reports I've read haven't been clear but I'm assuming you can also download it too. But the fact that they seem to be stressing the fact that it comes on new phones makes it seem that they'd like to be a major part of your phone purchase decision.
Will it be successful? My first thought is, no. The whole thing makes me think of Microsoft Bob. For you young'uns out there, Bob was a new, easier computer interface for people who found even the then-new Windows desktop too confusing. Instead of the metaphor of a desktop with folders and files and a garbage can, it used the metaphor of a person walking around a house. It sounds foolish to admit this now, but at the time I assumed Bob would become a standard part of computing, much the same way we became stuck with Windows whether we liked it or not.
Of course, it didn't happen that way. Bob was soundly rejected, and came to be the tech industry's equivalent of the Edsel. And that contributed to the widely-held notion that Microsoft can't create any new product on their own, and need someone else - usually Apple - to create the prototype.
Anyway, that's why I'm a little afraid that the Facebook homepage or whatever it's called might be something we're all stuck with, but also why I'm reassured that we won't be. Having said that though, there are a couple of reasons why it might yet work.
In a Wired writeup on it, they emphasize that the Facebook phone will be seen as the easy way to use the Internet, since that is essentially what Facebook itself is: a simpler, easier version of the Internet. That in itself is not a very convincing argument. You know who else had that "Internet, but easier" strategy? AOL. And it worked for them for a while, until people got comfortable with computers and the Internet and found other options. What's more, Facebook users - while not as young and hip as stereotyped - are not exactly the elderly tech-newcomers that were AOL's bread-and-butter.
But Wired's "Facebook makes things easy" article dovetails nicely with another article of theirs that illustrates the shocking disparity between Android and iPhone users. It turns out that although there are twice as many Android users, iPhone users do double the web surfing. That seems to play into the perception that iPhone users are looking for a device that does lots of things, while Android users just buy a phone and don't really know or care what it does.
In that case an Android phone that does things easily and without that fuss of downloading apps and figuring out how they work, could be successful. Add to that the phone makers need for differentiation: they love Android because it's cheap but popular, but they hate the fact that if you make Android phones, you're competing with all the other makers of Android phones making the same product. They wish they could mark up the price for a well known brand the way Apple can, but really they're making the equivalent of a no-name phone. That's why Android phone and tablets have the so-called "crapware": apps and widgets supplied by the manufacturer to try to make their Android phone seem different from their competitor's Android phone. The Facebook homepage would be a great way to make your product to stand out, so you know manufacturers are going to give it the promotion it needs to survive.
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