Money makes the world go round: A blog about the business and culture of all things entertaining in the world of theater, television, film, music, art, gadgets, gizmos and other life necessities (and probably other things, knowing myself)

Monday, December 6, 2010

Top Secret: Facebook Takes Over with New...Phone??


Following Apple's footsteps, word is out that Facebook is building the software and working with a third party to produce the hardware for a new phone.

 

Currently the number one Web site in the United States (with Google coming in a close second), Facebook has reasons to feel threatened and left behind by the power held by the iPhone and Android. Less than a year ago, news circulated that Google was working on a phone which we now know is the Nexus One. It won't be surprising if Facebook will have their own phone by next year. 

And why shouldn't they? Why stay an app when you can etch your name on the entire software? In other words, why rent when you can own? Zuckerberg, the youngest self-made billionaire to-date, has reasons to feel owning a mere app on a smartphone isn't going to cut it in long-term competition.  

So what's the phone going to look like? Is it going to be blue? The phone could come out in a number of styles and appearances, but the bottom line here is price. And who's going to buy it?

I'd say, most likely, the phone will be cheap...probably dirt cheap...cheap enough so that more people can afford to buy it. Facebook is free to the public and now it's the number one Web site so why shouldn't the phone be affordable and be the number one phone?

Two upper-level employees - Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos - are said to be working on the top secret project. Creating all of Facebook's iPhone web applications and formerly assisting to create the Firefox browser, Hewitt is qualified to work on a new software for a top secret phone. On the same scale, Papakipos is equally qualified as the recent lead developer of the Google Chrome OS project. Interestingly enough, Papakipos left this past June before the project was finished, most likely, for a more "exciting" project speculated to be - that's right - the new Facebook phone. 

Officially the word isn’t out yet and we don’t know when the secret launch date will be. And how the Facebook geniuses will integrate Facebook into the phone will, well, be another blog post. 

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