I'm talking about the latest news, Facebook(FB) Home!
FB Home is a brand new Application for mobile phones running on 'Android' Operating System. Yes, you guessed it right, Android is an 'open source' Operating System created by none-other-than FB's rival Google! How did FB pull off the impossible by grassing into Google's own product? I would call this a Master Stroke by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. To learn more, read on:
What is FB Home?:
Let me start with a question: What do you do with your smart phone? Calling, texting, browsing, facebooking, G+ing, Whats Apping, capturing image, playing games, shooting video & so on.
So Facebook is already part of your regular phone usage, then what is this new FB Home? What is the advantage? Is this any different from Facebook?
The answer is,
To log into Facebook, G+, MySpace....etc, you have a login page with username and a password, which takes you to the individual social networking site. So it is like, you have to login to fire(or trigger) the session and see what you want to see in the site. But with FB home, as the name rightfully implies, once you download this App to your smartphone, FB Home will become your Home Page(no recurring logins required).
Which means the moment you unlock your phone and if you have a decent 2G or 3G internet connection, your Android phone is going to display FB Home on your screen. So what does this FB Home do other than being your home page? FB Home is built around your 'friends' and puts them at the center of your phone. Say for example, one of your friends write something on your FB wall, you get the notification on your mobile screen and you can reply back right there or you can 'like' the content by tapping the phone and so on. Also if somebody updates a photo, you get to see it right there(at that moment) and you can respond back and so many more options.
Well, Zuckerberg is trying to make 'Friends' your top priority! So basically you will have Uninterrupted-Constant-Access to FB. Will Zuckerberg succeed in this? Let's wait and see for ourselves. FB Home will be available as a free download from Google Play Store starting April 12. FB Home works on several(will expand soon) smart phones such as HTC One, Samsung Galaxy phones..etc, but not on iphone! Mind you, Facebook's stock jumped 3% after the unveiling of FB Home.
What is Google got to lose in this rat race?
Mark Zuckerberg says, "We want to bring all FB content to the front"! So what does this mean to Google? This move may divert users from Google services and move them to FB in the ever bustling mobile sector. Why? As you all know Google gets its revenue from advertisements and payed searches. And that is mainly because, Google being the Search Giant and statistically 70% of users all over the world go to any other site via Google.com. With the introduction of FB Home, Google will lose it's home page status in many of user's phone.
Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world for free, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. With Home, Facebook is sandwiching itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network's own ads and services. Do you see the problem?
Did Google learn a lesson from Iphone(Apple Inc.)?
FB is taking advantage of the fact that Google places only few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Google's Operating System Android. By contrast, FB Home would not work on iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., because iphone doesn't run on Android instead on Apple's very own secured Operating System called 'iOS'. And that my friends, is where Steve J rocks!!
When people consider "Apple to be one of the most trusted and beloved companies in the world", it is not without any credibility, you see! Look at their forethought in tightly coupling their OS and saving it from hoodie clad Zuckerberg! Mind-blowing to say the least.
So the future?:
Gone are the days where you make "www.google.com" as your home page. Well, that is what FB is flaunting right now! We don't know yet!
By the by, Why does these social networking sites need user(our) information?
Every social networking site relies on Advertisements for its revenue. To understand, what the user likes and what interests him or her would make G+, FB & several others, refine their Algorithms to work better and this would help the social networking sites to serve the user with individual user preferred ads.
Say for example, you are a food blogger, you obviously would look into an Ad that has food content. So this is the idea. To know you better and in turn to serve you better, they need your private data. So this is the mechanism behind social networking sites not charging us a single penny, but still makes trillions in revenue!!
Now, do we really need FB Home in our phones?
How many of you are addicted to FB already? I'm sure most of you check your Facebook page at least thrice a day, statistics prove this. So do you want your phone to show you FB update day-in-day-out? Do you think you will do justice to your work life, by connecting to social networking site 24/7?
Don't you guys think that, this will make the already addicted FB users hyper-addictive?
I dunno, I some how did not feel good about this move. It is a great invention and a great idea to make FB presence felt more personally, but as an individual do you think it is good for anybody? I doubt.
Pour in your views, I would love to hear them all!
Tech Glossary:
1)Open Source - Means, you can download the software/application/tool/code for free
2)Operating System - A software that supports a computer's basic function.
3)App is the short form of Application
4)2G - Widely used internet data connection in India.
5)3G - Faster then 2G data connection and hence costlier too.
Image Courtesy: Somewhere from internet
FB Home is a brand new Application for mobile phones running on 'Android' Operating System. Yes, you guessed it right, Android is an 'open source' Operating System created by none-other-than FB's rival Google! How did FB pull off the impossible by grassing into Google's own product? I would call this a Master Stroke by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. To learn more, read on:
Let me start with a question: What do you do with your smart phone? Calling, texting, browsing, facebooking, G+ing, Whats Apping, capturing image, playing games, shooting video & so on.
So Facebook is already part of your regular phone usage, then what is this new FB Home? What is the advantage? Is this any different from Facebook?
The answer is,
To log into Facebook, G+, MySpace....etc, you have a login page with username and a password, which takes you to the individual social networking site. So it is like, you have to login to fire(or trigger) the session and see what you want to see in the site. But with FB home, as the name rightfully implies, once you download this App to your smartphone, FB Home will become your Home Page(no recurring logins required).
Which means the moment you unlock your phone and if you have a decent 2G or 3G internet connection, your Android phone is going to display FB Home on your screen. So what does this FB Home do other than being your home page? FB Home is built around your 'friends' and puts them at the center of your phone. Say for example, one of your friends write something on your FB wall, you get the notification on your mobile screen and you can reply back right there or you can 'like' the content by tapping the phone and so on. Also if somebody updates a photo, you get to see it right there(at that moment) and you can respond back and so many more options.
Well, Zuckerberg is trying to make 'Friends' your top priority! So basically you will have Uninterrupted-Constant-Access to FB. Will Zuckerberg succeed in this? Let's wait and see for ourselves. FB Home will be available as a free download from Google Play Store starting April 12. FB Home works on several(will expand soon) smart phones such as HTC One, Samsung Galaxy phones..etc, but not on iphone! Mind you, Facebook's stock jumped 3% after the unveiling of FB Home.
What is Google got to lose in this rat race?
Mark Zuckerberg says, "We want to bring all FB content to the front"! So what does this mean to Google? This move may divert users from Google services and move them to FB in the ever bustling mobile sector. Why? As you all know Google gets its revenue from advertisements and payed searches. And that is mainly because, Google being the Search Giant and statistically 70% of users all over the world go to any other site via Google.com. With the introduction of FB Home, Google will lose it's home page status in many of user's phone.
Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world for free, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. With Home, Facebook is sandwiching itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network's own ads and services. Do you see the problem?
Did Google learn a lesson from Iphone(Apple Inc.)?
FB is taking advantage of the fact that Google places only few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Google's Operating System Android. By contrast, FB Home would not work on iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., because iphone doesn't run on Android instead on Apple's very own secured Operating System called 'iOS'. And that my friends, is where Steve J rocks!!
When people consider "Apple to be one of the most trusted and beloved companies in the world", it is not without any credibility, you see! Look at their forethought in tightly coupling their OS and saving it from hoodie clad Zuckerberg! Mind-blowing to say the least.
So the future?:
Gone are the days where you make "www.google.com" as your home page. Well, that is what FB is flaunting right now! We don't know yet!
By the by, Why does these social networking sites need user(our) information?
Every social networking site relies on Advertisements for its revenue. To understand, what the user likes and what interests him or her would make G+, FB & several others, refine their Algorithms to work better and this would help the social networking sites to serve the user with individual user preferred ads.
Say for example, you are a food blogger, you obviously would look into an Ad that has food content. So this is the idea. To know you better and in turn to serve you better, they need your private data. So this is the mechanism behind social networking sites not charging us a single penny, but still makes trillions in revenue!!
Now, do we really need FB Home in our phones?
How many of you are addicted to FB already? I'm sure most of you check your Facebook page at least thrice a day, statistics prove this. So do you want your phone to show you FB update day-in-day-out? Do you think you will do justice to your work life, by connecting to social networking site 24/7?
Don't you guys think that, this will make the already addicted FB users hyper-addictive?
I dunno, I some how did not feel good about this move. It is a great invention and a great idea to make FB presence felt more personally, but as an individual do you think it is good for anybody? I doubt.
Pour in your views, I would love to hear them all!
Tech Glossary:
1)Open Source - Means, you can download the software/application/tool/code for free
2)Operating System - A software that supports a computer's basic function.
3)App is the short form of Application
4)2G - Widely used internet data connection in India.
5)3G - Faster then 2G data connection and hence costlier too.
Image Courtesy: Somewhere from internet
Let them battle it out while I try to enjoy the benefits.
ReplyDeleteHaa, that is the spirit :-)!
DeleteI love your posts Pavithra. It's very informative, thanks :)
ReplyDeleteHey Thanks Neela!!
DeleteIt was lovely reading this informative post and get a first hand update on this nice upcoming feature....nice analysis.
ReplyDeleteHey Thanks Kalyan!
DeleteI'm glad, you enjoyed reading this!!
we are benefited in their fights,don't u think so?? so,enjoy the latest tech :)
ReplyDeleteBut FB is very very highly prone to hacking.. They have the worst security measures I should say.. And I dont think they can replace Google completely as such.. They also have new counter measures coming up for this...Something like the Google Keep... And after the short fad, esp with youngsters, ppl would start realising that there is a larger life ahead than knowing ur friend's latest status updates or profile pic :)
ReplyDeleteIndeed they are prone to hacking and phishing, but so are the rest of the social networking sites as open as FB.
DeleteFB gets too much attention because they are the best(Numero Uno) social networking site across the world, so they are vulnerable to hackers than say Myspace or G+, the former lost it and the later is trying so hard.
Google did not expect this FB Home thing, so it is a setback for them, but end of the day, Hey - they are GOOGLE!!, so they are definitely gonna come up with something better or put some rules in the usage of their own OS Android, that would stop all the grassing by others in their territory.
And about Google Keep: It is just a notes app. This app will update say a photo, note, message are anything on your system, goolge services, android devices but not on Facebook you see, that is the point - people use facebook much much more than G+(G+'s market share is very less), so if you can take a pic, photo shop it and add note via Google Keep, you can update it in G+, other devices but not directly on FB, that is where FB Home wins!
But as you rightfully said, people should realize there is much more than updates from friends!! Hope they realize.
FB addiction is becoming like a smoke addiction nowadays!! Thanks dear for reading through and giving such a perspective, thank ya!! :)
Thanks for another amazing tech news that I only can get here Pavithra.. I feel personally FB home page is a lot of distraction if you have it on your phone.. I just prefer to log in to FB via computer once in a while.. I really do appreciate your effort in keeping us well informed dear :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lovely words, Nilu.
DeleteIt is always encouraging.
You are spot on, when you say - this FB home will be a great distraction rather than being helpful.