Facebook Smartphone
Google and Samsung have formed an alliance to produce Android smartphones after Google previously partnered with HTC to develop the Nexus One.
Based on recent news, industry insiders report that Facebook and HTC have a similar partnership. A cobranded smartphone is rumored to be released in late 2012.
With plans of becoming a publicly traded company, it looks like Facebook will find innovative business opportunities which will compete against heavyweights like Microsoft and Google.
With Amazon's early release of Kindle, the device easily allowed customers to navigate, download, purchase reading material from the website. Kindle became the ideal solution for Amazon shoppers.
It looks like Facebook is going down a similar trail. With over 845 million active users and growing by the day, many people access their accounts on smartphones.
Here are some more statistics:
- Approximately 80% of monthly active users are outside the U.S. and Canada.
- 483 million daily active users on average in December 2011.
- More than 425 million monthly active users who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011.
- Facebook is available in more than 70 languages.
Instead of downloading an app or using the mobile version of Facebook, HTC now has the ability to develop a device that allows a user to perform all Facebook activities quickly and easily :
- Play your favorite games
- Update your status
- Create pages
- Advertise your business
Since this social media giant is a must have for any successful business, I can see many new enhancements that will help generate advertising dollars.
Facebook showed a willingness to diversify its business with the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, a mobile photo sharing community.
Will this lead to a future collaboration invloving social media and digital photography (Canon or Nikon)? This remains to be seen; however it isn't a far fetched idea seeing how Google and Microsoft have evolved over the years.