Rumors had been swirling for weeks in anticipation of the new “Facebook Phone” announcement. However, techies across the nation were less than enthused yesterday as Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Home, a homescreen replacement for Android phones centered around his popular social networking website. This new “app-erating” system will officially roll out on April 12th on the HTC First and will be made available on tablets using the Android operating system over the next few months.
Facebook Home allows users to have easy one-touch access to an entire Facebook experience featuring full-screen photos, status updates, notifications and more. Zuckerberg strayed away from developing a physical phone and instead created a way for users to transform their own mobile devices into a ‘Facebook phone’ at their own discretion.
However, considering Facebook’s revenue is derived from advertisements, Zuckerberg was noticeably quiet when asked about the presence of ads on Facebook Home. Surely online advertisers will jump at the chance to push products and services on the new Facebook home. Ryan Tate at Wired.com stated that Facebook Home online advertising would essentially be “dropped right in your pocket.” The big question is: Will users deem the “reformatted” ad presence to be too intrusive?
Only time will tell if the new Facebook Home will vastly improve the mobile user experience or simply become another social networking fad.
