<div>Happy now? Those demanding a sound mobile strategy from Facebook should be pleased at this latest move from the House of Zuckerberg. Or should I say, Home. <br /> </div><div>Instead of making a Facebook phone, which would have just been a risky reinventing of the wheel, Facebook cleverly decided to ride piggyback on the biggest mobile player — Android — and set up home there. In any case, it’s hardly in business of hardware. Instead, it came up with another solution. <br /> </div><div>‘Facebook Home’ is an Android launcher and for those not familiar with that, it’s an interface that sits on top of the operating system on the device. The launcher determines what you see on your home screen and to some extent the immediate access you get to apps, settings or other items depending on the design of the launcher. There is no dearth of launchers, and Android power users are constantly trying them out for customising the look of their phones and tablets. And now, there’s an all-Facebook launcher that makes an Android smartphone look like a Facebook phone. And I’m dismayed. <br /> </div><div>The Facebook launcher actually looks very nice, from what we can see in pictures and videos in demos. It takes up the lockscreen and home screen and turns it into a “cover feed” of big pictures and statuses of whatever your friends are posting. Better hope they post good-looking content that you can swipe through contentedly every time you reach for your phone. To begin with, only some devices such as the HTC One, One X+, top Samsung Galaxy phones etc., can get the Facebook Home launcher and perhaps only in the US. HTC has partnered with Facebook and come up with a phone called First wearing this launcher, but that too isn’t announced for India yet. In any case, you neither have to buy the phone nor get the launcher if you don’t want to. That’s not the problem. What worries me is that Facebook Home now opens the door for Facebook to build on a mobile strategy to get further enmeshed into users’ lives. The possibility of creating a launcher has existed for years since it’s something any developer can do, so it’s surprising it took so long for Facebook to get to. Mark Zuckerberg says it’s all about putting people first, but that bit of marketing cliché is something of which we’re surely growing weary. With a Facebook-oriented phone, a user will certainly be hyperconnected with friends all the time. You’d never miss a cat photo or baby snap. You’d get your dose of useless life-changing quotes, you’d know who ate what and you’d get our fill of people moaning about it being Monday again. Luckily, my feeling is that not very many people will want this. It’s one thing to have the choice of getting to your Facebook app when you’re good and ready and spending however long you want catching up. It’s quite another to have the entire device, which we use for so many things, all Facebooked. <br /> </div><div>Reception of Facebook Home has sparked off fears of how even more access to user data will be in the hands of a company which has figured out how to fine-target ads to users. But as long as these are not intrusive and getting in the way of what I want to do, I don’t see that as a big problem. I worry more about how users will be projected in search results and future features on a platform that is mobile and growing faster or even crushing the PC industry. Do I want my face popping up on someone’s phone screen when he or she does a search for something? Do I want my location, which may be public in some place, to be further known where I did’t expect it to be? Facebook makes reassuring noises about that sort of thing now, but have they really gained the trust of users so far? If I were to be optimistic, I’d hope that Facebook will learn that it has to quit surprising users with changes that they didn’t ask for and assuming that all anyone wants to do is Facebook 24/7. Yes, it’s become a verb. <br /><br />mala(at)pobox(dot)com<br /><br />Twitter: (at)malabhargava<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 06-05-2013)</span></div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
