Mark Zuckerberg Introduces Facebook Home
Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s (FB) new mobile strategy. Starting April 12, you will be able to download and install Facebook Home directly from the Google Play store or buy an HTC phone which will have the software pre-installed. While this announcement was delivered with a typical Zuckerberg lack of enthusiasm, it was the best possible announcement they could have made.
Even though Zuckerberg had previously denied making a Facebook phone, the rumors that they would announce either a new phone or a forked version of the Android OS were rampant. Either one would have been a bad idea.
A new phone would have put them in a niche market (Smartphones for avid Social Network Users) with very little justification for most people to buy the phone. A lot of people use Facebook but I’m not convinced they are so obsessed with it that they would buy a phone centered around the site. The new OS approach makes it even more complicated since they have all of the same problems with the added overhead of managing and maintaining yet another version of Android.
So why was Facebook Home the best possible approach?
