Facebook is planning a "mobile event" announcement (or announcements) Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT, and all bets are "on" as to what the social network will reveal. Some bets are safer than others.
TheNextWeb gives some pretty good possibilities, in order of likelihood: New mobile apps, including an iPad app; Facebook Places check-in deals; Facebook app store and mobile SDK (guidelines for software developers who want to create apps); and a Facebook phone.
"It’s been awhile since Facebook did a rethinking of its mobile apps, and it would seem about time for the world’s largest social network to redo its suite of mobile apps, possibly with Skype and Facebook Credits (for mobile payments) integration," TheNextWeb said. "Many people are especially hoping to see a redone Android app, as of all the platforms, the Android app is probably the most lacking."
A Facebook app store and mobile SDK would let software developers "build games and other mobile apps for (Facebook's) own mobile OS or perhaps a Facebookized-Android OS," the site said. "Announcing the platform a few months before it actually launches its phone ... is what both Apple and Google did before launching its phones to world."
The Facebook phone idea first surfaced in September, although it was denied by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He told TechCrunch that Facebook is working on better integrating its software in phones, and that "At the end of the day, when people say 'building a phone' they actually can mean very different things." But Bloomberg reported that Facebook "is working with mobile-handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd. on two smart phones that may be carried by AT&T Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter."
In "5 Reasons Facebook Won’t Announce A Phone Or OS On Wednesday," AllFacebook.com writer Nick O'Neill said, "Just as Apple announced the iPhone with a number of development partners who had already built applications, Facebook would probably want to have a large group of developers on board."
And, he added: "While we’d love Facebook to announce a mobile operating system, a new phone, and develop the cure to cancer in a single week, it’s a pretty big project to rebuild a mobile operating system (such as Android). While I have the greatest faith that Facebook has the capability to launch a mobile OS, simply put, I don’t want to set our hopes too high."
Source: msnbc
No comments:
Post a Comment