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The fact that the internet users increasingly use their mobile devices to go online has proved to be a strong incentive for many companies to hastily act in that direction. A touch screen, a smaller one too, forces users to change their behavior, when comparing to the desktop experience. Mainly, navigating between browser tabs has become quite a choir, especially due to the touch screen. Instead, dedicated apps have become the first to go to instead of browsers for many tasks. Facebook app is one of those apps, surely, as there are many others, like Gmail or Whatsapp. We reported already on how Google plans to tackle the move with its Chrome browser.
But there are several classes of mobile apps. A game such as Angry Birds is hardly comparable with the Facebook app in terms of user engagement, yet they both occupy a similar space on your mobile home screen. What Facebook intended to achieve with Facebook Home app, its Android skinned OS, is to offer a holistic Facebook experience. It’s not something unimaginable, for sure. When talking about the grand actors, the difference between Facebook, on the one hand, and Google and Apple, on the other, is that Facebook is offering just a social experience with an almost straight foreword path-dependency: users engage with the Facebook mobile app in a very similar manner to the one they do on the desktop. So how could have had Facebook Home succeeded, when Google offers through Android a complete OS experience?
Facebook Home app team is disbanded
Today, a New York Times blog post announced the unofficial death of Facebook Home app. The software, which is still available here on Google Play, has not been updated since January 13, which is decades in Google Play chronology. Facebook Home app makes / made it easier and faster to access your Facebook feed from your home screen, as well as exchanging messages with your friends. HTC First was the only smartphone to be shipped with preinstalled Facebook Home. That was more than an year ago, in April 2013.
Facebook is not shy on trial and error, if we look at its the abandoned Poke and Camera offerings. Although Facebook Home is still available, Joey Flynn, its lead designer, moved to Facebook’s new project, Slingshot.
Grand actors are competing with each other by offering holistic experiences and so far Facebook has not delivered up to its promises. It seems that so far Apple, followed shortly after by Google, have sensed better how to adapt their strategies by combining pre-existing, as well as newly acquired hardware and software companies. Instead of focusing on the Facebook Home app, the company shows proactivity through its Creative Labs, where it acts as a patron of new apps.
