HTC has thrown us two phones – Salsa and chacha – with a Facebook button on them and tried to sell them as Facebook phones. Now Facebook with its 800 million users, has decided to make the real Facebook phone. The only thing common between the HTC’s Facebook phones and The Facebook phone is HTC. HTC will be the manufacturer. Facebook phone will be called as Buffy. No brownies for guessing where the inspiration for the name came from.
Facebook has forked Android and is heavily customizing it to deeply integrate with its services. Facebook is also betting heavily on HTML 5 and is choosing to make it as a platform. Great news for HTML 5 and terrible news for Android.
Buffy will be out in 12-18 months.
Universal app becomes a platform of sorts
In this highly fragmented world of smartphone apps, there is no such thing as an universal app. Making an app which transcends all app stores and mobile platforms is almost impossible. Only exception is Facebook. It’s an universal app which runs on all popular smartphone operating systems, feature phones and the new breed called samrter phones. Facebook is an app you almost can’t live without. Now is Facebook really an app?
Facebook isn’t just an app. It’s a platform. It started as an innocuous social network where it was just cool to be where your friends are. It went through an explosive growth and is now a platform. With Facebook you can chat with your friends, make a video call with Skype backbone, read news and thanks to Facebook’s new friend Paypal, you can even send money to your friends.
With Facebook Buffy, things are getting hotter. The prophecy that Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are the companies that matter in the next decade is becoming true. There are no surprises when it comes these four companies. Google will be making its own tablet, Amazon is rumored to be launching its own Smartphone and with the Facebook phone, the playing field is leveled. Only the service which they offer differ, for now.
If there’s something you touch, talk and interact with, these four companies will be on it.
Via AllThingsD