It is the height of presumptuousness for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to think that all that people want to do with their smartphones is be on Facebook.
Yet that’s what he’s peddling today at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., with the introduction of Facebook Home, a set of Facebook-related applications that would be the primary user interface for Google Android-powered smartphones. It would be a richer Facebook experience than you get with the present application that runs on smartphones, tablets, desktop and laptop computers. Examiner colleague Emily Sutherlin does a deep dive on the features of Home.
To be sure, you can still use existing Android apps on your phones, but Facebook Home would really be in your Face, pun intended.
I like Facebook and use it often – too much sometimes, methinks. But, sorry, Mark, it’s just one of the many apps I use on my smartphone. I make the most use of my smartphone when I’m mobile, not so much at home, so calling it Facebook Home is ironic on that level.
When I’m mobile, I’m more interested in using apps for significant and timely needs. They include messaging for texts with friends I’m meeting up with, navigation for finding my way on the highway, Yelp for finding a restaurant. I plug my smartphone into my car stereo to play music while driving. I use e-mail to check a document attachment for information prior to a meeting and my calendar for the address of that appointment. If I click on Facebook when mobile, it’s to pass the time, maybe post a photo I just took or check my News Feed for – you know, news. Oh, I almost forgot; I make calls.
Industry analyst David Garrity concurs. The principal analyst at GVA Research said in an interview streamed on YahooFinance that “When people are on a mobile device, they’re more interested in actually getting something done than taking the time to sit down and chat with their friends and waste time.”
Facebook said today that Home will be pre-installed on the coming HTC First smartphone, to be released April 12, which is also the day owners of other Android smartphones can download Home onto their devices. Home on tablets is a few months down the road, Facebook said.
To be sure, Facebook needs new ideas to generate revenue and to increase shareholder value and this report from Cnet indicates that the company is on a mobile ad revenue surge. But it remains to be seen if Home will help that.
Again, analyst Garrity says that the cost per thousand (CPM), the advertising term for what an advertiser pays to reach that many eyeballs on a smartphone “is still well below what you have on devices like a tablet or desktop.”
The fact of the matter is that given the small screen on a smartphone, there’s less real estate to present an effective advertising message compared to the screens on those larger devices.
To be fair to Facebook, it’s long been said that it needs to develop an advertising business model for mobile that matches the success it’s had on the desktop and tablet. Good luck with that but count me as running away from Facebook Home.
Oh, also, I have an iPhone.
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