'Dozens' of Facebook Phones Coming, Zuckerberg Says
In anticipation of two new Facebook-branded phones being announced by HTC, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recorded a video saying we can expect many more to come.
"A lot has been made about a single Facebook phone," Zuckerberg said, "but this year you can expect to see dozens of phones with much deeper social integrations than anything we've seen so far."
Zuckerberg is referring to rumors last year that Facebook was making its own phone. He quashed those rumors himself, saying that the company was not making a phone, clearly because the company was working with manufacturers to make many phones.
The first two Facebook phones, the HTC Salsa and HTC Chacha, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, have a single, solitary blue button at the bottom with the Facebook logo. Holding down that button instantly brings up the integrated Facebook interface, even though in most other respects these are just regular Android phones with relatively uninspiring specs.
The little blue button is also context-sensitive, meaning that it flashes when something the user is doing on the phone is capable of being shared through Facebook. It's unclear how people will react when accidentally hitting the Facebook button after crafting a particularly nasty, but private, text to someone.
It's not clear if "deeper social integrations" will mean different features from other manufacturers, or if we can just expect other manufacturers to include little blue Facebook buttons of their own.
"Phones are inherently social devices," Zuckerberg said, "and the industry is just beginning to discover what's possible here."
