Facebook Home – Another Sign Of Unwarranted Arrogance

The Facebook phone has become the mobile industry’s answer to the Loch Ness monster – sightings have been often reported, and people are definitely hungry to see it, but there’s no tangible evidence to support its existence.

So when Facebook invited the media for a mobile-related announcement on Thursday, the rumour mill went into overdrive, suggesting that the fabled device was about to be unveiled. Disappointment was to follow.

Instead, the social network uncloaked Facebook Home, a piece of software that in theory has the ability to turn any Android phone into a ‘Facebook phone’. It effectively acts as a home screen, offering users instant content and the ability to interact with stories directly. Android applications can be launched from within home, while SMS and Facebook messages can be viewed without disturbing an app running in the background.

More than half of Facebook’s estimated one billion users access the social network through a mobile device, yet it has struggled to monetise that user base. The advantages of piggybacking on Android for Facebook are obvious – more views means more advertising revenue  –  but why would anyone want to use it?

Mobile exposure

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged the company’s mobile strategy has been flawed, but has repeatedly denied that Facebook needs a smartphone to increase the visibility of its advertising platform.

Speaking at the launch of Home, he explained that a good smartphone might sell between 10-20 million units, a small fraction of Facebook users.

“We want to build the best experience for every person on every phone,” he said. “We’re not building a phone and we’re not building an operating system.”

Android was chosen for a number of reasons. It can be customised in any way a developer wants, while there is already a vast existing user base to tap into. It also means that Facebook won’t have to convince users of the benefits of a new operating system, a challenge that Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 have struggled with.

This means that manufacturers are exposed to fewer risks if they support the platform, while users can switch back to the standard Android version if they don’t like it.

Integrated experience

Facebook says the advantage of Home is that it is “designed around people” rather than apps and will allow them to make the most of their phone. Content is loaded in the background, meaning users can view stories even if they are just checking their phone while waiting in a queue.

According to the company, smartphone users check the Facebook app three times as much as any other application, but does this really mean that people want to see it all the time? Surely most people are content with being notified about key events though notifications rather than letting Facebook dominate their handset.

Home is by no means ugly, but when Sony, Samsung and HTC are putting so much effort into their user interfaces, it seems unlikely that users are going to want to put another piece of software on top. It might be more suited to mid-range smartphones with less impressive UIs, but all the smartphones that will be Home-compatible from launch are high-end devices, with shiny, familiar versions of Android.

What’s the point?

Facebook says it is super excited about Home running on tablets, but again, why would anyone buy an expensive tablet primarily for the purpose of viewing Facebook posts?

Facebook has managed to create the fabled ‘Facebook phone’ without releasing any hardware or an operating system, so it is taking a risk.

It is the latest in a line of new features designed by Facebook to make people spend more time on the social network and there will doubtless be some demand from those who can’t stand to be away from their newsfeed for longer than five seconds.

But following changes to newsfeeds, timelines and the addition of Open Graph Search, it is possible that most users will see Facebook running their smartphone as one intrusion too far.

And it all points to Facebook’s massively-inflated opinion of itself: it thinks it is far more important than it actually is. Just look at the IPO that was such a major disappointment last year. It now believes people will want to ditch their Android OS homepage to something way less familiar. But Facebook is a much-used Web app at heart.

And it offers little else to the majority of users, who don’t care for its “innovations” (it is at the back end, as shown in the Facebook Open Compute project, where Facebook is actually innovating, but that doesn’t make mainstream media headlines). Soon even those fully on board the Facebook hype train might start to notice.

What do you know about Facebook? Find out with our quiz!