Facebook Phone? Facebook Mobile Event on November 3rd
When you talk about Facebook, usually it’s about Facebook being the dominant player as a website and social entity. And it is. But what is stopping Facebook from going from a website that also makes mobile apps apps to a company making (or branding) social hardware just as Google went from providing a dominant search engine to building the most popular mobile OS, offering industry leading turn-by-turn navigation software, and selling the Nexus One?
Nothing. We’ve got an invitation to a November 3rd Facebook Mobile event and we’re not sure WHAT will be announced at their heaquarters in Paolo Alto, California… but the launch of a Facebook phone is a possibility, and an incredibly intersting one at that.
It’s quite possible that Facebook is just holding an event to celebrate the launch of a fully functioning app on multiple platforms that greatly enhances the Facebook experience on your mobile phone. But I doubt that. I sense something bigger is at hand.
Prior to the launch of the Nexus One, I was rudely confident in saying that Google wouldn’t launch their own phone. They didn’t launch the gPhone as many had predicted, but I was suprised they launched a phone at all. In my opinion, it wasn’t their core competency and it would compete with the partners whose trust they had gained.
Now I see the world a little bit differently after eating humble pie. These huge companies are on top of a world that is driven by innovation. Great ideas win. Either you can let other companies put their great ideas into action and eventually overthrow you, or you can leverage your ingenuity, creativity, financial resources, and sheer size to take market share in new and growing markets. This is something Google also did with their Chrome browser and Chrome OS.
Given that Facebook is a powerhouse in the world of everything social, wouldn’t a huge move in the mobile industry make sense? Mobile and social go hand in hand. Mark Zuckerberg has taken Facebook from a small dinky website to one of the most successful, rich, and powerful companies in the world. The movie “The Social Network” says a lot about where this guy came from and where he is going, but the fact is that this kid loves building things. If he started Facebook from scratch, tech competitors should be scared about what this guy can accomplish with the resources he has in post success days.
The holiday season is upon us and it looks like a Facebook phone might be an option. Or will they announce something else, like an outrageously awesome mobile dev tools to build Facebook extensions for their apps? It could be anything… so leave your best guess in the comments below!