If Facebook Made A Phone
Christian Lindholm of BusinessWeek investigates how social networks like Facebook has changed how we use the mobile phone today, and argues that “Facebook could redefine communications by issuing its own smartphone“. Lindholm asserts that social networks, like Facebook, deserves more integration into smartphones then static apps or websites, that a physical embodiment of Facebook could ‘revolutionize‘ how we communicate.
The FacePhone
Many might argue that a Facebook app might be more then enough. However, Lindholm poses some interesting features and concepts that a Facebook smartphone could deliver. Facebook could serve as the ‘web’s best contact book‘, and a ‘Facebook-centric device.. would have the ability to incorporate real-time information about friends at every stage of your interaction with them. The need to send expensive SMS messages would be reduced or eliminated by the ability to send a Facebook message from your phone as easily as you now send an SMS… A Facebook device would open up new possibilities for creativity, too. We know that consumers more than ever carry around devices for creating and sharing content with each other. Instant and seamless uploads of photos and videos would create not just a master phone book but also a master photo and video album. Indeed, a Facebook phone could become your master life recorder—a kind of social archive of your digital life.“
Lindholm does make some very valid points; email, SMS, and Facebook PMs are all redundant in its functionality. We check and recheck multiple accounts at multiple times throughout the day. We may have photos in our home, on Flickr, on Picasa, or Facebook, on our camera, and on our phone. We have multiple contact lists, from our email, phone, and Facebook. The question becomes is there a better way of handling all these inefficiencies?
A Facebook-branded smartphone with a unique OS may not necessarily be required, but currently smartphones like Apple’s iPhone are tightly locked-down on basic functionality that competes with Apple’s own. Facebook integration into the contact book, SMS, photo album, and the phone itself is not allowed. There is no “app for that”. As Lindholm puts it, ’Such a device would undoubtedly terrify mobile operators, who could witness even more of their network traffic shift from voice and pricey messaging to raw streams of data. Incumbent handset makers could lose, too, as further control over the user experience shifts to an Internet company that stands to profit from dominating the online life of users.’
Conversely, Google has an opportunity to better integrate Android under a smilar social network approach with their newly announced Buzz, but how open will it be to competing social networks like Facebook? There is still a lot of questions, but the bigger question is what would such a device be called? ’FaceBookPhone’, ‘FacePhoneBook’, ‘fPhone’, or merely ‘FacePhone’?
