Facebook Tries, Tries Again on a Smartphone
Found on Bits on Sunday, 27 May 2012
Employees of Facebook and several engineers who have been sought out by recruiters there, as well as people briefed on Facebook’s plans, say the company hopes to release its own smartphone by next year.
For Facebook, the motivation is clear; as a newly public company, it must find new sources of revenue, and it fears being left behind in mobile, one of the most promising areas for growth.
“Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” a Facebook employee said.
Letting Facebook control the phone hardware will only make everything worse. Just yesterday news pointed out that Facebook doesn't like it if you deny it your information by blocking location data. By developing its own phone, Facebook doesn't have to worry anymore about privacy settings; Everything will be linked to your account: your phonebook, who you have called when (and the call itself of course), your 24/7 location and all photos. Everything you do with that phone will be added to your profile; and the paranoid (or realistic) ones will wonder if that phone will maybe activate itself now and then to spy on you.