Facebook Home isn’t quite dead yet. You can still download it in the Google Play Store. Facebook hasn’t made any official announcements about abandoning Home.
But according to a report from The New York Times, Facebook Home is on its last legs.
Sources tell the Times’ Bits blog that Facebook has disbanded the crew of engineers responsible for working on Home.
Facebook Home was launched at a big press event a little over a year ago. Described as a “mobile experience that puts your friends at the heart of your phone,” Home is basically Facebook’s attempt to take over your Android device. Home is an OS-lite, an app suite that pretty much turns any phone into a “Facebook Phone” by putting a constant stream of Facebook content front-and-center on your smartphone’s homescreen.
Despite the initial fanfare and strong download figures, Facebook Home suffered from very poor reviews. By the time Facebook Home hit 500,000 installs, over half the reviews were of the dreaded one-star variety. Shortly after its launch, the first phone built with Facebook Home already pre-installed was price-cut and then faded into oblivion.
It was clear, pretty early on, that Facebook Home wasn’t poised to take over anything.
To be fair, the team responsible for Facebook Home hasn’t really been working hard to push the software onto more devices. The last update Facebook Home received was way back in January.
Facebook maintain that it puts mobile first these days, and they appear to be putting their money where their mouth is.
Well, okay, not really. Where’s Graph Search on mobile?
Anyway, Facebook has launched a new update for its Android app that brings a handful of notable features.
For one, Facebook is giving Android users more control over who can see the things that they’ve posted. The first feature in the “what’s new” section on Google Play is “Easily change who can see something you’ve shared.”
Also included in the update is the ability to send multiple photos to users in a single message. This can be done by simply tapping the “+”.
For those using Facebook Home (which hasn’t been a huge hit for the company), you can now customize the app launcher by dragging apps you use the most to a new favorites tray. Facebook Home updates are included in Facebook for Android updates.
The update also includes various stability and memory improvements as well as bug fixes.
When Facebook revealed Home for Android, it also revealed a new phone called the HTC First to go along with it. The phone apparently didn’t do so well in the American market leading to rumors of its demise. Now it looks like the phone won’t even get a chance across the pond.
Mobile News reports that pre-orders for the HTC First in the UK have been canceled. Those who were hoping to get ahold of a “Facebook Phone” will now have to settle for one of the preexisting Android devices that support Home.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the decision to cancel the HTC First launch in the UK was made by Facebook. An anonymous source speaking to Mobile News said that Facebook’s decision was spurred by the phone’s performance in the US:
“The HTC First has been pulled and will never go on sale in the UK. Sales in the US were poor and Facebook has taken the decision not to give it a more widespread release.”
The presumed death of the HTC First doesn’t spell the end of Facebook Home, but it does show that consumers don’t want a Facebook phone yet. Home is available on numerous high-end Android devices so it makes little sense to buy a mid-range device when Home compatible devices, like the Galaxy S III, are sold for around the same price.
Of course, I fully expect Facebook to try its hand at an officially branded phone again when it adds more features to Home proper. Reviews are not good at the moment, but improved Home software could make a future Facebook phone more appealing to the average consumer.
Sad news for the music community, as influential keyboardist and Doors founding member Ray Manzarek has died due to complications from bile duct cancer. He was 74.
Manzarek met Jim Morrison while studying film at UCLA, and the rest is history. After liking some early songs that Morrison had written, Manzarek and Morrison met up with drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a transcendental meditation lecture.
“I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today,” said Doors guitarist Robby Krieger in a statement. “I’m just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life, and I will always miss him.”
“There was no keyboard player on the planet more appropriate to support Jim Morrison’s words,” said Densmore. “Ray, I felt totally in sync with you musically. It was like we were of one mind, holding down the foundation for Robby and Jim to float on top of. I will miss my musical brother.”
Manzarek is being remembered on Twitter, where fans and fellow musicians are sharing their condolences and memories.
Very sad to hear of the death of Ray Manzarek, founder & keyboards with The Doors. Played a Fender Rhodes like some funked up Bach. MCO
Manzarek had a crucial part in many of The Doors’ greatest hits, but it’s hard to think of him without thinking about his blistering keyboards in the 1967 song “Light my Fire.”
It looks like the HTC First, the first true “Facebook Phone,” is about to be killed before it really gets a chance to live. According to a report from BGR, the first phone to come pre-installed with Facebook’s Android takeover Facebook Home will be discontinued by AT&T.
BGR cites a “trusted source” who says that sales of the HTC First have been so terrible that AT&T has decided to discontinue the device and return all unsold inventory to HTC.
The source doesn’t have exact figures on the sales, but apparently less than $15,000 units were sold since AT&T slashed the price to $0.99 (with a 2-year contract) last week.
From BGR:
For some perspective, BGR has been informed that sales of the HTC First have been even worse than HTC Chacha sales were back in 2011, when AT&T launched the ill-fated phone as the Status…We’re told that AT&T sales representatives do not like Facebook Home or the First at all, and they are making little if any effort to sell the handset to customers. Right now iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are the biggest sellers at AT&T by a substantial margin, our source said.
The HTC First has been referred to as the “Facebook Phone,” because it came pre-installed with Facebook Home. Of course, Home is also available on a handful of other Android devices and has been available for download since April 12th. Home in general has been underperforming – although it just crossed a million installs, it has a terrible 2-star rating in the Google Play Store. The failure of the HTC first, if this report is accurate, simply underscores the fact that the Facebook Home experiment is well on its way to official bomb status.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this article accordingly.
UPDATE: Facebook is not commenting on the report. We have also contacted AT&T for comment.
UPDATE 2: AT&T had this to say:
“As mentioned previously, we do pricing promotions all the time and have made no decisions on future plans.”
Facebook announced this week that its Facebook Developers group will be setting up shop at Google I/O. The team obviously won’t have any official presence at the show itself, but it will be hosting a Google I/O kick off party on the day before the conference. The team will also be on the conference floor during the week to talk with developers about app discovery on Facebook:
“…members of the Facebook team will also be there to help you learn how Facebook can drive app discovery in a crowded marketplace, and keep people interested and coming back to your app.”
If you can’t make it out to Google I/O, developers will have another chance to pick the minds of Facebook team members at AnDevCon Boston on May 28. The Facebook team will be hosting a number of talks covering topics like Home, Facebook’s Android app and the Android SDK:
Join Facebook Home engineers Will Bailey and Luke St. Clair for a keynote on Tuesday evening about our new user experience on Android. We’ll talk about why we built Home, how we designed its UI, and how we optimized battery and data usage. We’ll have a few technical deep dives, and will share some insights about how we built the product to be centered around people.
Our first class session, by Android team engineers Frank Qixing Du and Mark Peng, covers the native rewrite of Facebook for Android and the major performance challenges the team faced. They’ll talk about app design, GC and memory optimization, view optimization, and what techniques and tools you can use to make your Android app more performant.
For those of you building apps that use Facebook, we’ll have two workshops about the basics of our Android SDK, and advanced tips to make your apps and the stories people publish from them sticky. We’ll be around throughout the conference to chat and answer any questions you have about your integration.
It’s nice to see Facebook embracing Android, but I personally can’t wait to see what it does with Google Glass. Google will probably showcase some Google+ stuff on Glass at Google I/O, but we might get a sneak peek at Facebook on Google Glass at AnDevCon.
Facebook Home, Facebook’s Android homescreen takeover, has been available for just over a week. In that time, we’ve seen the app take on a barrage of negative reviews.
But people are still downloading it and trying it out. As of today, Facebook Home on Google Play has surpassed 500,000 installs.
We don’t know the exact number of installs, as Google Play only gives us an unspecific snapshot of the numbers. Right now, it says that the number of installs is somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million. The Next Web noticed that Twitter users noticed the jump from “100,000 to 500,000” to “500,000 to 1 million” some time on Sunday.
500,000 may seem like a small number of installs, considering that Facebook has over a billion monthly active users and that something like the Facebook app has between 100 million and 500 million installs. But in a week’s time, to be working its way to a million installs, is pretty good for Facebook Home considering it’s only available on a handful of Android devices.
Still, the news isn’t nearly all positive for Facebook. Facebook Home is still suffering from poor user reviews. Last week, we told you that after just 3 days on the market, Facebook Home had sunk to an average rating of 2.4 out of 5 in the Google Play Store. At that time, 47% of all reviews awarded the app 1 star.
Now, at Facebook Home surpassed 500,000 installs, the negativity is growing. The average rating has fallen to 2.2 and 1-star reviews now account for nearly 52% of all reviews.
Last week Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, their “app family” Android takeover that turns your device into a full-fledged Facebook-first hub. It takes over the homescreen, turning it into a stream for Facebook news feed content and works Facebook messaging and notifications directly into the Android UI. Although they may be hesitant to say that they’ve created a “Facebook Phone,” what they have done is given plenty of Android users the ability to turn their phones into Facebook Phones.
Is Twitter thinking about doing the same?
Speaking at All Things D’s Dive Into Mobile, Twitter VP of Product Michael Sippey left the door open for such a product.
“There are a lot of things we’re looking at on Android,” he said. “I think [Facebook Home] is an interesting product. I’d like to see tweets there. So we’ll see.”
So, what would a “Twitter Home” product look like? And would you want it?
Well, we can imagine an Android launcher that displays your tweet stream on the homepage in the same way that Facebook displays the news feed. Although Twitter can also be media-rich, the fact that Twitter users typically follow hundreds and even thousands of users, all of which appear in the stream unfiltered (unlike Facebook) makes it seem like there would need to be some tweaking to make sure the user isn’t flooded with too much content. It would be pretty easy to integrate Twitter notifications and messaging into the base Android experience, though.
Of course, there’s no telling what a Twitter-based Android OS-lite interface would look like. And Twitter hasn’t said that they are working on or even seriously thinking about something like this. But Sippey makes it clear that Twitter is curious about users being able to turn their devices into “Twitter Phones.”
What do you think? Sound like something you might want to play around with?
Later today, Facebook will unveil an update for their iOS app that brings chat heads, stickers, and news feed improvements.
First up, iOS users will be able to use chat heads – one of the main features of Facebook Home for Android. Of course, these chat heads won’t work on your iOS home screen, only when you’re using the Facebook app. But it will let you keep multiple conversations going much easier when you’re inside the app.
As with chat heads on Android, you simply tap them to open up the chat thread, and drag them around and place them wherever you want on the screen.
Last week, on the same day Facebook unveiled Facebook Home for Android, they also brought chat heads to Facebook Messenger for Android – you know, to throw Android users with device not supported by Facebook Home a bone.
The update also brings stickers to the iOS app.
Also, we’re finally getting those changes to the news feed on mobile that Facebook announced but is still slowly rolling out on desktop. According to Facebook, the biggest changes will be seen on the iPad, “where you’ll see brighter, more beautiful stories.”
Facebook says that the update will be ready to download later today in the App Store.
Is Facebook working with Apple and Microsoft to bring Facebook Home to additional platforms?
Maybe, maybe not, according to conflicting reports.
Bloomberg recently spoke with product director Adam Mosseri, who stated that Facebook was in talks with both Apple and Microsoft.
“We’ve shown them what we’ve built and we’re just in an ongoing conversation,” Mosseri said.
He went on to say that nothing was finalized, but that they were conducting talks.
But The Next Web calls that report into question. According to a source familiar with the talks, Facebook is not really in talk with either Apple or Microsoft. “No discussion have taken place to bring Home to those platforms,” they say.
It’s not as though Facebook and Apple have a bad relationship or anything – you may recall that your iOS 6 has deep Facebook integration. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the two have a good relationship. On the topic of Home, he previously said that…
“We’d love to offer this on iPhone, and we just can’t today, and we will work with Apple to do the best experience that we can within what they want.”
Even if Facebook were to offer Home on iOS, it may not even look like the Home that they just launched on Android. In fact, there’s no guarantee that it would even be called “Facebook Home.”
“It may or may not be Home,” Mosseri told Bloomberg. “We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it’s not called Home, it’s called something else.”
Just over 47%, actually. There are nearly three times as many 1-star ratings as 5-star ratings.
Let’s take a look at some of the 1-star reviews, shall we?
Not an intuitive app. Made my phone so frustratingly complicated to use that I uninstalled after just four or five hours. Unless major changes are made including an easy way to get to my home screen I will not reinstall.
Cool way to use facebook, but with no support for my other widgets, it limits my phone. If I wanted a single company to take over my homescreen appearance, I could use an iphone.
This home app is garbage! Sucks your battery down. Doesn’t let other widgets run. And, to much stuff from people’s profile in your face 24/7.
What the hell is facebook home doing? It’s a homescreen that invades your phone. There s no way at all to access your widgets…can’t see weather, time, nothing…what a big dud!
So, it looks like the major complaints are that it’s invasive, doesn’t play well with others, and drains battery. To be fair, there are plenty of good and even great reviews for Facebook Home – but the negative outweighs the positive in a big way.
As of right now, the average rating is a lackluster 2.4 out of 5.
The way the Google Play operates, reviews are only accepted by people wo have actually downloaded the app in question. So we can assume that the majority of the nearly 1,900 1-star reviews are from people who are legitimately unimpressed with the app. By comparison, the basic Facebook app has a 3.6 average rating, Facebook Messenger sports a 4.4 average rating, and Facebook Pages Manager has a 3.8 average rating. So far, Facebook Home is the bad apple of the group.
Facebook Home, the company’s new OS-lite “app family” that takes over your Android device and turns the homescreen into a Facebook news feed, launched this past Friday. Now you can download the app collection from Google Play, free, on a select number of Android devices.
When Facebook first announced Home, they launched a quirky little ad featuring some plane antics. Now, Facebook has unveiled the second Facebook Home ad in this style, made by the people at Wieden+Kennedy. This ad is called “Dinner”:
Facebook also put out this semi-ad called “Launch Day.” It stars Zuckerberg, whose pep talk is flooded with events from on engineer’s news feed. Both of these ads stick with the Facebook Home brings your Facebook life everywhere theme. Check it out:
As of right now, you can only download Facebook Home if you have one of these four Android devices: HTC One X, HTC One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Samsung Galaxy Note II. In the future, the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 will also allow for Facebook Home.
And then, of course, there’s the HTC First – the first phone to launch with Facebook Home ready to go. Don’t want to call it a “Facebook Phone” – then don’t. But it’s definitely the first Facebook centric phone on the market. It also hits the shelves today.
“Facebook Home is the mobile experience that puts your friends at the heart of your phone. From the moment you turn it on, you see a steady stream of friends’ posts and photos on your home screen. Upfront notifications and quick access to your essentials mean you’ll never miss a moment. And when you download Facebook Messenger, you can keep chatting with friends when you’re using other apps,” says Facebook.
And about those chat heads that let you “keep chatting with friends when you’re using other apps.” If you have an Android phone, want to download Facebook Home, but alas, your Android phone isn’t supported – all is not lost. Today, ahead of the Facebook Home launch, Facebook added chat heads as a part of the Facebook Messenger app for Android. Now you can make use of/be incredibly annoyed by chat heads no matter which Android device you own, depending on how you look at it.
Facebook unveiled Facebook Home for Android last week, as I’m sure you recall. There was a lot of press about: the product, what it means for Facebook’s mobile strategy, the Eminem song Facebook used in a video for it, etc.
One of the key features of Facebook Home is something called “Chat Heads”. These are images of your friends that appear on your device when you get a Facebook message (or text message) from them. They come up regardless of what app you’re currently using. They infiltrate the greater Android experience to inform you that your Facebook friend has something to tell you, regardless of whether or not you’re currently using Facebook (and assuming the standard notification wasn’t enough).
But Facebook Home is only available for a handful of devices. Lots of Android devices have access to the Facebook Messenger app, however. In fact, lots of Android device-owning Facebook users already have the app installed. That app just got updated, and guess what’s listed in the “What’s New” section:
– Keep chatting even when you’re using other apps. Just tap the chat head to reply, drag down to close.
– Bug fixes.
Sure enough, it works just like that aspect of Facebook Home. You know don’t have to have Facebook Home to have your friends’ messages intrude on whatever you’re doing on your device. Now, you can just have Facebook Messenger, and enjoy the same effect.
Mildly funny conspiracy theory alert: This is not confirmed. I haven’t talked to anyone inside Facebook with knowledge on this topic. This is simply something that I observed, and I’m pretty sure I’m on to something.
OK, so you probably heard about Facebook’s big event last Thursday where they unveiled Facebook Home, their Android takeover “app family” that basically turns any phone that installs it into a Facebook Phone. So, during that event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced an ad for the feature called “Airplane.” In that ad, we noticed that the background music sounded quite similar to an Eminem song. Specifically, “Under the Influence” off of The Marshall Mathers LP.
Coincidence? Probably.
But the plot thickens.
A few days after the event, Facebook finally released the “Airplane” ad on their official YouTube channel. It’s the same ad that we saw during the event – expect for one small detail. The background song has, without a doubt, been altered. The melody is similar, but not the same.
So…did Facebook have to change up their ad because it reminded people of a decade-old catchy but obscene Eminem song?
Here are exhibits A,B, and C.
The original ad starts at about 28:05 in the video below:
And here’s the Eminem song that the first version of the ad sounds like. NSFW lyrics, obviously:
And finally, here’s the version of the ad that Facebook released this weekend. The song in the background sounds similar, but has been changed around significantly.
Remember the lyrics to that Eminem song:
“You can suck my dick if you don’t like my shit. ‘Cause I was high when I wrote this so suck my dick.”
Maybe that was Facebook’s subtle way of letting us all know that they welcomed the criticism.
Joking aside, it’s not impossible that someone made the last-minute song change because the original song sounded exactly like that Eminem song. Whether it was intentionally designed to mimic that song, or it was just an odd coincidence, someone could have pointed out the resemblance and that prompted the change.
Maybe my brain is just spinning uncontrollably. It’s a Monday afternoon and I didn’t get a lot of sleep over the weekend. But damn if it’s not funny to think about. Especially considering Mark Zuckerberg’s recently unearthed penchant for Eminem jokes.
Last week, Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, the company’s Android takeover “app family” that basically turns any phone that installs it into a Facebook Phone. Home turns your Android homescreen into a Facebook experience, with a scrolling news feed, integrated Facebook messaging, and more.
Shortly after the big reveal, Facebook released an ad for Home. Now, they’ve finally released the other ad – the one that Zuckerberg introduced during the event. The ad, called “Airplane,” attempts to impart the message that having Facebook Home integrates the experience of Facebook into every little aspect of your life. But it’s a little strange. Check it out:
Kind of odd, huh?
Facebook Home will become available on April 12th.
On Thursday, after weeks of building up to it (and years of Facebook phone rumors), Facebook unveiled the closest thing to a “Facebook Phone” that exists. This comes in the form of a new “family of apps” for Android, and an actual phone from HTC with the family pre-loaded. The experience is called Facebook Home.
What are your first impressions of Facebook Home? Future of Facebook and mobile communications or meh? Let us know in the comments.
Facebook’s mission with this offering is to make your phone more about people rather than about apps. The core feature of Facebook Home is the Cover Feed, which takes over as your home screen, and lets you swipe through the latest photos and updates from your Facebook News Feed. You can also interact with the posts from there (liking, commenting, etc.).
But it doesn’t end there. Notifications appear on the home screen in a visual way. As our own Zach Walton explained, “All notifications will show up on the home screen as separate entries. Tapping the notification will bring up the Facebook app for further interaction. If you want to get rid of it, you can just toss it off the screen. Holding one of the notifications will lump them all together if you so wish to disregard all of them at once.”
To even access your other apps in the first place, you have to hold the image of your face that appears (see that little image of Mark Zuckerberg below) and swipe it up to the appropriate place.
There is a feature called “Chatheads,” which allow your Facebook and text messages to follow you through your other apps. Messages (via these little heads of your friends) will show up at the top right of your screen regardless of what app your’e in.
For a more hands-on look, you might want to check out this demo from The Verge:
Okay, some of you are probably thinking: I don’t even use Android, so why do I care about this? Fair point, but Facebook indicated that it wants to provide an experience like this across all phones. This is easier said than done, however.
Facebook chose Android because of its open source nature that allows it to take over your phone in the manner it does. It’s not so easy for all operating systems. Zuckerberg specifically talked about how Apple’s control over iOS simply does not allow it to offer this kind of experience on an iPhone. It would take a partnership for that to happen.
We’d love to offer this on iPhone, and we just can’t today, and we will work with Apple to do the best experience that we can within what they want, but I think that a lot of people who really like Facebook — and just judging from the numbers, people are spending a fifth of their time in phones on Facebook, that’s a lot of people. This could really tip things in that direction. We’ll have to see how it plays out.
Of course only a select few Android users even get access to Facebook Home at this point. It’s only launching on a handful of phones, which is somewhat ironic given Facebook’s desire to have it on every phone. It’s coming to the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II, as well as the newly introduced HTC First, which features Facebook Home pre-installed.
For developers, Facebook has created some new opportunities with Home. The Cover Feed feature lets users access app content as soon as they turn on their phones. More on that here.
For Businesses, not only will your Page’s posts and photos be more readily available to users due to the in-your-face nature of Facebook Home, but Zuckerberg says ads will be coming to the feature at some point.
Another thing that could make Facebook Home more useful to both users and businesses is the eventual addition of Graph Search. Graph Search has not even been launched on mobile devices yet, and it remains to be seen how long that will take. It will happen, however. Facebook said as much when that was introduced. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land quotes Zuckerberg from the Home launch:
“When that’s available, hopefully we’ll be able to make that available here [in Home]. But even Graph Search, Graph Search is not web search. People still need Google or Bing of whatever they use for web search.”
Is Zuckerberg perhaps being cagey, holding back on a secret-uber plan to eventually have Graph Search take over on these devices. Perhaps. And I do think Graph Search is going to come. But really, the impression I got was that search has largely been overlooked with the launch of Home.
As Google faces the real risk of losing search market share little by little to numerous vertical services, it’s possible that Graph Search will play a big factor in that. We discussed this more here.
Sullivan makes a good point in that same article in that Facebook Home makes users have to work harder to get to the search experiences on their devices. Just as users have to take an extra step to access their apps, they have to take an extra step to get to the search function (which could very well turn people off of the offering on its own).
Fortune goes so far as to call Android “Facebook’s new weapon against Google” because of Facebook Home; the point being that Google wants you to live in Google’s world and use Google’s services when you’re on an Android device, and Facebook Home puts you squarely in Facebook’s world, distancing you more from Google’s products even on its own operating system. It’s a fair point, and it’s really a similar (but more in your face) strategy to what Amazon is doing with its Kindle Fire devices, which use Amazon’s version of Android and its own app store.
If Facebook is able to get a substantial amount of people using Facebook Home, even if only on Android, it might push Graph Search even further into users’ search habits, especially if it’s available on their devices in less steps than a Google search.
But search isn’t the only Google service Facebook Home pushes to the background. As mentioned, it essentially pushes every other app on your phone to the background, but as Pocket Lint points out, it even eighty-sixes Android notifications, except for on the HTC First (another reason a lot of people might steer clear of Home).
There are real questions about whether or not people even want this kind of Facebook experience on their phones.
And of course, like with just about anything Facebook does, privacy is in the discussion. Even some of the most veteran of tech journalists are raising concerns.
Om Malik, for example, writes, “In fact, Facebook Home should put privacy advocates on alert, for this application erodes any idea of privacy. If you install this, then it is very likely that Facebook is going to be able to track your every move, and every little action.”
“The new Home app/UX/quasi-OS is deeply integrated into the Android environment,” he continues. “It takes an effort to shut it down, because Home’s whole premise is to be always on and be the dashboard to your social world. It wants to be the start button for apps that are on your Android device, which in turn will give Facebook a deep insight on what is popular. And of course, it can build an app that mimics the functionality of that popular, fast-growing mobile app. I have seen it done before, both on other platforms and on Facebook.”
“But there is a bigger worry,” Malik adds. “The phone’s GPS can send constant information back to the Facebook servers, telling it your whereabouts at any time.”
As some noted in response to Malik’s points, Google already does this stuff.
Martin Bryant at TheNextWeb counters Malik’s argument asking, “Is that really such a bad thing?” His point is essentially that targeted ads are better ads.
All in all, you have to really, really like Facebook to want to have Facebook Home dominating your phone. Luckily, there are a lot of people that really, really like Facebook. The social network has over a billion users. It’s unclear how many of them love it to that extent. Home adoption could prove to be an interesting window into that kind of data.
Even without having access to it, it’s clear that many view the offering as intrusive and an inconvenience to the rest of their phones’ functionality. It’s going to be quite interesting to see how the product evolves and whether or not users get on board.
What do you think of Facebook Home? Is this the future of how we’re going to interact with Facebook? What are the bigger implications? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Yesterday, Facebook announced Home, a custom Android skin that replaces the default Android experience with one that’s entirely based around Facebook. As part of the presentation, Mark Zuckerberg lamented the current state of app-centric phones, and said that Home would finally bring people to the forefront of the mobile experience.
The mission statement of Home seems to have caught the ire of Microsoft as the company’s VP or corporate communications, Frank Shaw, took to the company blog today to say that Facebook is late to the party. Shaw says that Windows Phone 7.5, which was introduced in 2011, was in fact the first phone based around people instead of apps.
You could argue whether or not Shaw’s claim is true, but the company was marketing Windows Phone 7.5 as a people-first phone back in 2011. It’s understandable that the company would be a little upset over Facebook essentially stealing its nonexistent thunder.
Shaw ends his mini-rant with the suggestion that Windows Phone is superior to Home because Home is just an Android skin. Besides, Home takes away some features from Android while Windows Phone offers all the features of Home and then some without sacrificing any core features.
What makes this even sadder is that Home isn’t even out yet. It’s entirely unproven, and yet Microsoft is already on the offensive. As TechCrunch rightly points out, Microsoft’s readiness to attack Facebook Home shows just how sensitive it is over how nobody cared about its people-first device in the first place.
All this leads us to the million dollar question – will people care about Facebook Home when they clearly didn’t care about Windows Phone? Facebook certainly seems to think so, but the tepid reaction to Windows Phone shows that the majority of mobile device users are probably pretty happy with their app-centric devices.
Besides, I’m sure most Android users would prefer a better Facebook app over Home anyway.
It may be quite a while before we see it, but we can probably expect Facebook Home to get Graph Search built in sometime in the future.
First, if you haven’t read about Facebook Home yet, go do that.
Graph Search has not even been launched on mobile devices yet, and it remains to be seen how long that will take. You can rest assured, however, that it will come. Facebook said as much when that was introduced. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land quotes Zuckerberg today:
“When that’s available, hopefully we’ll be able to make that available here [in Home]. But even Graph Search, Graph Search is not web search. People still need Google or Bing of whatever they use for web search.”
Is Zuckerberg perhaps being cagey, holding back on a secret-uber plan to eventually have Graph Search take over on these devices. Perhaps. And I do think Graph Search is going to come. But really, the impression I got was that search has largely been overlooked with the launch of Home.
In his article, which points out that Facebook Home makes it harder to search, Sullivan also shares a Vine showing that Facebook Home does not prevent the easy use of Google Now.
Graph Search is not the only potential feature for Facebook Home that Zuckerberg hinted at today. He also said ads will come at some point.
Today, Facebook announced Home, a deep integration of Facebook into Android that basically turns any phone that installs it into a Facebook Phone. Home, which will launch on April 12th, is a family of apps that when installed, turns your entire homescreen into one big Facebook experience.
And the main aspect of that experience is the Cover Feed. It features all the fresh content from your Facebook news feed, basically turning your Android device into a photo-oriented, swipeable Facebook hub. You can like, comment, and view notifications directly from your Facebook Home screen – with no need to launch any sort of app. It’s without question the deepest Facebook integration any mobile OS has ever seen.
And you can bet that Facebook it going to try to monetize it.
After the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that ads will be coming to your Facebook Home Cover Feed.
“There are no ads in this yet, I’m sure that one day there will be,” he said. He then repeated his answer when asked again about whether or not ads would be coming to the Cover Feed. According to Zuckerberg, ads are just another kind of content.
C’mon. Don’t look so sour. You didn’t think that Facebook would build a grand new Android-based user experience and leave out the ads, did you?
When Facebook Home launches, it will be downloadable on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II – and eventually the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.
And on that same day, the HTC First will launch as the first phone the comes with Facebook Home pre-installed.
At its much hyped Android event today, Facebook unveiled Home, a custom set of apps that transform any ol’ Android phone into a Facebook phone. The event was mostly focused on what Home can do for users, but Facebook wants its stable of developers to know that Home is for them as well.
First up, the Cover Feed is advantageous for developers as it lets users access app content as soon as they turn on their phone. Here’s the list of story types that can be shared via Cover Feed at the moment:
Photos stories
Updating your profile photo
Updating your cover photo
Open graph stories with user generated photos
Liking a photo
Tagging someone on a photo
Commenting on a photo of someone
Sharing a Photo
Non-photo stories
Updating your status
Place check-in with a message
Sharing urls by clicking the “share” button on another story
Posting a url from your timeline
Page posts
Updates and photos from Page posts
Notifications are already a great engagement tool, but Facebook reckons that Home will make notifications even more engaging by making them “bigger” and “bolder.” The larger size will also make it easier for users to interact with notifications, thereby increasing your chances of having a user engage with your content.
Facebook Messenger ensured that a user would leave your app if they got a message from a friend in the middle of playing a game. Home’s Chat Heads makes it so that messages appear on screen, even while using you app, and users can respond without ever having to close your app.
Finally, Facebook says that its app launcher will make it easier for people to get to your apps more quickly. The launcher is fully customizable so a good app is likely to always be at the forefront of any launcher.
Facebook will be updating Home every month so you can expect more developer updates as Facebook builds out Home into a more sophisticated product. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to also a get few major Android SDK updates this year to address how apps can better take advantage of Home.
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