Zuckerberg Belies Facebook Smartphone Rumours
It is a search function in a beta mode that would allow members to search information posted by their friends, not a smartphone. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg's announcement on Tuesday at the company's headquarters dashed weeks of rumours that the most popular social media company would soon roll out a mobile device.
Companies that want to jump into the smartphone boom are not new. In the previous decade ESPN Phone and Disney Phone attempted to create a platform over a single application which eventually failed. Prior to the Tuesday announcement, speculations have spread that Facebook will have their own phone to compete with other manufacturers such as Amazon, Google and Windows.
It is likely to fail if ever a model is to be released even if Facebook has more than 500 million members and so many users logging in at Facebook.
Facebook isn't considering the creation of their own mobile device but instead focuses on improving their mobile app version which is currently tied to two most prominent OS platforms - Android and iOS. Google right is the strongest mobile OS platform for Facebook because of its huge market, but for Windows, their app is still quite slow unlike the iOS version.
Another improvement that should take place is the integration of the Facebook app in a general way to every Android device because currently, HTC and Samsung does a good job to make the app fit to their devices.
Besides the smartphone rumour, other speculations include Facebook rollingout a new video chat services or changes in the sites's news feed.
Ahead of the new Facebook search function, thousands of family members, school mates and friends have been reunited because of the non-stop growing popularity of the portal.
One such story is that of a seven-year-old American boy's search on Facebook that resulted to a reunion of long-lost elderly siblings who never saw each other for 65 years.
Eddie Hanzelin, 7, used his mother's Facebook account to search for Betty Billadeau, 70, and then informed his father that he saw a Missouri woman resembling Clifford Boyson, who is now 66.
The daughter of Betty Billadeau, Sarah, presented Eddie with a $125 cheque reward for his effort in reuniting their families.