The Facebook Smartphone Trend

Rumors of a Facebook phone have abounded for some months now, and every time a story surfaces, Facebook denies it is true. Now, despite Facebook's obvious distaste for having a "Facebook Smartphone" made, mobile phones have indeed begun to surface and they are equipped with dedicated Facebook buttons and the media has dubbed them, Facebook phones, even though they are not.

Facebook Phone Manufacturers

While Facebook is actively working with multiple handset makers to encourage the trend, the Facebook brand does not appear anywhere on the phone, except on the button. The manufacturers include HTC and a British manufacturer called INQ, both of which are releasing two different models, each with a Facebook button.

The idea is that the handset will come with a button adorned with the Facebook short "letter logo" that allows one touch access to user profiles while allowing automatic uploads of photos and music or share a website with a single push. Considering the Facebook logo is present, the phones will undoubtedly cost more than a "regular" smartphone. That said, are Facebook users willing to invest up to a hundred dollars more for an entire hardware platform just to have an easier time posting to their profile a cool tune they are listening to on their phone?

The Social Phone

What would be the point of building a handset that is designed to tie in to Facebook directly? Facebook is already available on every smartphone, laptop, tablet PC, or any Internet device with a keyboard and screen by way of a Facebook application download, which is available for any OS platform. For the dedicated Facebook user, the dedicated button would be a convenience and nothing more. Would users pay extra do be able to snap a photo and with the click of a single button upload the image to a Facebook account?

For those that are not dedicated Facebook users, taking time to log onto profiles and upload images the "old fashioned" way is not necessarily a problem. One has to speculate that it would be possible to have a programmable app to monitor user activity, and then prepare to upload the image, with user approval. In fact, many Facebook centric apps already do that and the app icon sits right on the home screen of the smartphone, so what is the difference between launching an app and pressing a button? The issue is whether a dedicated button is really that much of a productivity gain.?

A Facebook phone is more a representation of the established popularity of the social networking company, and the growth of the smartphone platform as a default network access and information-processing device. President Obama's wireless initiative is testament to that fact. A physical button is not really needed, and the reduction of steps necessary to upload information is not that important, save to those who are extremely active users. Some very legitimate groups make Facebook a key part of their professional lives and many companies have active profiles, using them for sales. Social groups also use Facebook to organize activities and update information to their members for social causes. If any group would have a "real" need for a "Facebook Smartphone' it would be them, right?

Real Facebook Phone Market

It is hard to imagine any company or social activist group spending thousands of dollars to equip their members with Facebook powered smartphones when simple, "ordinary" smartphones would do, just with a few more steps. So, for whom is the hardwired Facebook phone meant? Those for whom Facebook has become a necessary and important part of their social life and who believe the faster they update their statuses or get that cool pic uploaded, the faster the better their lives would be.

Hollywood mavens come to mind and as such, a market for these smartphones will exist because there will be those for whom Facebook IS the Internet. Then we will see others combining Android with customized, spec-based hardware to create their own phones, maybe even companies that, with enough employees, will go to China and have a thousand or so phones made to their own design specs. The mobile market was just born and there will be many new phones for many reasons, customized units, branded units and other variations are bound to happen, the Facebook pone was simply the first.