Facebook, in an effort to keep mobile audiences always affixed to its social network, is showing off a new "Home" on Android at a press event at its Menlo Park headquarters.
Facebook Home consists of a family of the social network's apps that become the home of your Android phone. With Home, the device's home screen transforms into "Cover Feed," or a visually reach version of News Feed for your phone. Home also includes a more picture-perfect version of messaging complete with a Facebook-invented feature called "Chat Heads," and color notifications that include friends' pictures.
The social network showed off the software, which can be downloaded to a limited number of Android phones starting on April 12, and also invited partner HTC to unveil the HTC first, the first smartphone to come with Facebook Home preinstalled. HTC CEO Peter Chou said the new device, arriving on April 12 exclusively with AT&T, represented a "great opportunity to bring mobile and social together."
"We're not building a phone and we're not building an operating system," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "We're building something a whole lot deeper than an ordinary app."
The rumor mill has been running fast and furious ever since Facebook announced the event one week ago. The company, according to a bevy or credible-sounding reports and alleged photo leaks, was expected to showcase a new HTC device running a tweaked version of Android that makes the social network's apps and functions native to the smartphone.
"We're not building a phone and we're not building an operating system," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "We're building something a whole lot deeper than an ordinary app."
Today, phones are designed around people, not apps, Zuckerberg said. "We want to flip that around."
The social network aims to flip the model with a Facebook-centric view of your world. Messaging, in particular, has been tailored around people. The Home-modified functionality offers users a way to engage in multiple conversations with a single, and includes something called "Chat Heads," which are basically interactive profile pictures that you can have a little extra fun with. Chat Heads work with both Facebook messages and standard text messages.
The rumor mill has been running fast and furious ever since Facebook announced the event one week ago. The company, according to a bevy or credible-sounding reports and alleged photo leaks, was expected to showcase a new HTC device running a tweaked version of Android that makes the social network's apps and functions native to the smartphone.
Investors initially weren't all that keen on the suspected Android news, though some seemed to have a change of heart Wednesday after JPMorgan analysts quelled fears about the social network's mobile users jumping ship to other applications. JPMorgan has a $35 price target for Facebook, which closed Wednesday at $26.25 a share.
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