Social media giant unveils new smartphone interface,
New super-app makes social network the hub of any Android smartphone
Facebook is taking aim at the mobile world by launching Home, a family of apps for Android.
Instead of keeping users a click of an app away from Facebook, Home automatically launches and takes over the home screen, putting the social network and potentially it’s advertising front and centre.
The experiment, announced Thursday at Facebook Inc.’s Silicon Valley headquarters by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, intensifies the balancing act between keeping users engaged and pushing them away, analysts say.
Home, which becomes available in the U.S. April 12, will allow Facebook to track more user behaviour on devices and add advertising opportunities, said Ovum telecoms analyst Jan Dawson.
“And that presents the biggest obstacle to success for this experiment: Facebook’s objectives and users’ are once again in conflict,” he said.
But there are selling points for users, Dawson said, noting it will become easier and faster to message and share information, including photos.
The interface of the “launcher” essentially takes over the phone, with functions that include “coverfeed.” It keeps friend updates and other Facebook notifications scrolling through the phone’s locked screen, with quick access to “comment” and “like.”
“Chat heads” uses friends’ pop-up avatars for quick messaging even when the user is doing something non-Facebook related on their phone. Texts and Facebook messages appear in the same inbox and an “app launcher” allows access to the phone’s other functions.
“Why do we need to go into all the apps in the first place to see what is going on with the people we care about?” Zuckerberg said, suggesting people don’t want to miss out on what their friends are doing and Home is “the best version of Facebook there is.”
But for some customers, including Toronto university student Trung Nguyen, the interface isn’t that appealing and he’s left with concerns about being bombarded with advertising. Zuckerberg said there won’t be advertising initially, but there likely will be in the future.
“Facebook is great but I don’t think I need (it) to take over my whole phone,” Nguyen said. “It might get annoying.” Still, Dawson said Facebook’s “great experiment” is smarter than building its own “Facebook phone,” as many suggested the company would in the lead up to its highly anticipated announcement.
In January, Zuckerberg told investors in the firm, which began public trading almost a year ago, that much of this year would be focused on growing its mobile reach beyond its 680 million monthly mobile users. Following the announcement, Facebook’s stock rose 3.1 per cent Thursday to close at $27.07 (U.S.), still lower than its IPO share price of $38.
With Home, Dawson said there’s little to lose for Facebook because the company isn’t investing in developing a phone or operating system of its own. This option also has more growth potential, he said.
Existing Android customers will be able to download Home through Google’s online Play store starting on April 12 and there will be monthly updates.