Displaying items by tag: Facephone

If Mark Zuckerberg and crew needed any more evidence that people are not interested in a FacePhone they only have to look at the HTC First. This new phone has already dropped down from its introductory cost to the $.99 bucket which is normally reserved for products that are at or near the end of their sales life. The HTC First is less than a month old so why is it already in the bargain bucket? Is this showing that people do not want Facebook running their phone or simply a reflection that people are do not want a phone that is too social network oriented?

It looks like the rumors of the death of the “Facephone” could have been exaggerated. According to some interesting rumors flying around the internet, Facebook might release their own branded version of Android on HTC hardware. This means that the potential for a Facebook banded phone is more likely than many (including us). Interestingly enough we did catch this potential in an article we wrote last year in May. We had spoken with Paul Amsellem, CEO of Mobile Network Group about the possibility of a Facephone and he had indicated that if this were to be a reality we would need to see a real product (OS or Phone) in 12-18 months. That article was published on May 30 2012. This seems to be a very unusual coincidence.

There was a lot going on in the stock market yesterday. Apple became one of the top companies in the world for a number that actually means nothing (Market Cap). The Market Capitalization of a company is the value of a single share multiplied by the number of tradable shares available. This gives the purchase price of market value of a company. In order for someone to buy out Apple they would have to come up with a staggering amount of money. However, that number still means nothing when it comes to the actual company and its “value”.

Well looks like we were close to the mark with our comments this morning about a Facephone. If you remember we had talked about the rumors that continually popup about this legendary device and some of the “indicators” that have had analysts and journalists even claiming to know when one would launch. So far we have heard everything from it will be Nokia/Microsoft effort to an HTC/Android product. The problem was that most guesses about this were based on the simple fact that Facebook hired people from Apple and Palm. What they did not do was really look at what those people did and what they are doing at Facebook.

As we near the launch of two new phones the rumors are building again around a Facebook phone (dubbed the Facephone by many). This is a rumor is something we have covered on more than one occasion and while we still think that it would be a flop (for many reasons) the rumors are interesting when we take a look at their origins and the companies they involve. The latest one involves HTC as the potential partner with Android as the base OS. It comes on the heels of new information about the team of developers that Facebook has picked up from Apple and Palm.

There are sometimes items that show up in the market that seem to point to something on the horizon that could be quite interesting. Although when we first saw the news that Facebook had picked up another Apple employee (this time the UI designer for iWeb and Numbers) we did not think much about it. Now however, there is something else that is on the horizon and that seems to counter some information that we had before about a possible Facebook phone. This is the news that RIM might be considering selling off their handset business.