We don’t know what Facebook is up to, or if the sources TechCrunch still has faith in are wrong or right or, if the latter, such a project is much more than a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.

But would a Facebook phone make sense? I don’t think so. Facebook integration in Google Android phones is very deep, so much so that it is arguably better to use than gMail contacts. Ironies aside, this is exactly the sort of advantage one would presume building the delivery mechanism would get you, and they have an amenable platform to do pretty much whatever they want in software.

On the iPhone, the Facebook app seems to be a better embodiment of what social networking is all about, without all the bells and lights and noise that get you all distracted on the pinball machine that is Facebook.com.

Can the experience be improved on mobile? Sure. And it will be, of course. We know this without sources telling us because that is the way of the world. They question is, how. The answer, I think, isn’t hardware.

Mobile phones are the number-one accessory for most people, especially the core demographic that uses a social network like Facebook. Are these customers going to pick a phone to just to perfect their Facebook experience? Would you pass on an iPhone or an Evo or the next fantastic Android handset that comes out just to bathe in mobile Facebook goodness?

Even if the phone is free? Even if they pay you to get one? Even if it only had to be the second, single-purposed phone in your life and you kept in your office drawer because your enterprise network blocks out the site? Even if it really isn’t a phone but an internet appliance that depends on available Wi-Fi … you get the idea.

This seems like the tail wagging the dog. For example, there have plenty of internet watches from companies run by smart people who hired smart people to make them — just ask Microsoft, which introduced one in the internet’s Triassic age (seven years ago.) Or LG, which unveiled one at CES 2009.

These wonders of technology do things that Dick Tracy could only have imagined. How many have you seen at SXSW? Anywhere in the wild? Right. Because watches, like your mobile phone, are a statement. Smartphone buyers won’t sacrifice substance for style — and they don’t have have to. Even Google doesn’t like their Android-powered phones being called Google Phones because, as powerful as their brand is, it sounds like all they do is Google stuff. The backlash on a “Facebook Phone” — that is what it would be called, make no mistake — would be tremendous.

Facebook may have ambitions outside of its comfort zone, and heaven knows they have the money to entertain any fantasies they may have. But if one of them actually is sponsoring a branded handset they should be asking themselves what we’re asking: Who needs it?

Follow us for disruptive tech news: John C. Abell and Epicenter on Twitter.

See Also:

• Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative …
• Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy …
• Facebook ‘Suspects’ Zuckerberg Contract Was ‘Forged’
• Facebook Launches ‘Check-In’ Service to Connect People in Real …

Authors: John C Abell

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