Every smartphone wants to be a Facebook Phone (Translation)

Can Facebook position itself as the center of the new mobile Internet?

Most recently, Facebook held a “Developer Day for Mobile Platforms” - a meeting by invitation only. The main theme of the event was the habitual praise of the company's platform. I sat and listened to Doug Purdy, product director for developers, talked about integrating Facebook into all sorts of mobile apps, but I heard and realized at the same time a much deeper vision of the company regarding the direction of the Internet development and how it plans to dominate it.
Over the past 10 years, we have become accustomed to thinking of the words “Internet” and “Network” as synonyms. However, their values ​​are not, if you go back to basics. For many, the Internet is what we see in the browser. But do not forget that viewing HTML pages is just one of many ways to use the web that connects all of us. In its development, Facebook came to dominance in this segment of the network, having a billion active users, leading huge traffic to other websites, becoming a social layer at the heart of the modern world.

The nature of the internet is changing

However, the essence of the Internet and the main role of the network is now changing rapidly. The arrival of huge ecosystems of powerful applications, provoked and supported by Apple iOS, dragged a lot of our familiar online interactions from the network to the applications. That is why so many rumors began to appear about the imminent demise of the “old network” and the diminishing influence of desktop computers and the transition to mobile devices and applications.
To better understand the scale of changes in the Internet, consider at least the insane success of Instagram. Its web presence is minimal, all interactions occur within the mobile application. And only with his help, the company has grown to 30 million users and was bought by Facebook for several hundred million dollars! What did this purchase mean? And the fact that Facebook not only understands the importance of sharing photos, but is also aware of the fundamental changes in the Internet. And it seems that they did not lose with this deal. Instagram has recently overtaken Twitter by the number of active users per day, and this growth is not slowing down. And companies such as Palm and Mozilla are still counting (surprisingly, but with rather little success) that “the network is always more convenient than its own application.” For example, Google promotes its ChromeOS products as centralized web services for broad masses who are not ready to fully switch to HTML5. The head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, in the discussion about the native iOS Facebook application, admitted that "the company's biggest mistake is to rely too confidently on HTML5 instead of native applications." This comment was regarded as the official statement that Facebook is already much more than just a website.
Purdy said, however, that Facebook is still not abandoning HTML5, but from the web presence in general. After all, it should be understood that there are about 7,000 different devices, to write a “native” program for each is not a simple task. “The network still remains for us a huge playing field,” said Purdy.
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Focusing on smartphones and apps

Without giving up the web presence, Facebook still realizes that the future is with smartphones. Focusing on developments for mobile devices naturally means the need to support the developers themselves. So, Facebook began to actively create an ecosystem of its own applications and aggressively build up its mobile platform. Now we have a lot of tools that cling to the feed, the chronicle, the authorization system through Facebook, the pages of brands / groups / etc. And also there is a new powerful product - the Center of the Applications, allowing to distribute these tools.
The company's bet on the mobile platform was justified. Purdy said that 8 out of the 10 largest iOS apps use Facebook tools for anything. And the Facebook App Center (Application Center) has already brought 180 million transitions to the Apple App Store and Google Play. There is even more impressive statistics - 40% of applications from Top iOS and Android have any integration with Facebook.
Statistics figures are very good, but even this does not fully satisfy Facebook’s ambitions in this area. Therefore, they spent the Developer Day for Mobile Platforms - in order to attract even more developers to learn the principles of the Facebook platform.
Speaking about developers, Purdy briefly told the story of the Internet as a whole. Just as Google and Yahoo at one time helped us understand the organization of a huge number of web pages at the very beginning of the development of the network, Purdy explained the principle of the work of popular app stores for today's consumers.

"The main principle of Facebook design is not to interfere with the user"

Climbing up on the web, Facebook introduced a new, “social” way of discovering online. Purdy declares that Facebook is “the number one source of network traffic”, thanks to Facebook Connect tools for easy sharing of information, content, links ... “This is a word of mouth information center on a global scale,” said Purdy to developers, and Facebook intends to become the same center for applications, as it is in the network. Another Purdy quote about this:

“We will use the same sets of solutions for the mobile platform as for the web, as we are sure that they are applicable. We believe that application stores are very similar to the search engines that exist on the web at the moment, and we think that Facebook can be a good tool for mobile platforms, as it is for web pages. ”

Of course, application developers are more pursuing their own goals than the goal of “dominating” Facebook. The company naturally simplifies their lives by providing a convenient and simple authorization system without the need to create a separate account or use “OAuth”, but the main bonus for developers is the growth potential of the platform. Facebook assures developers that the company's social content distribution tools also work well for applications. Like a mantra, Purdy repeats these words: “Embed Facebook in your app, and it will grow!” And another quote:

“We are developing a tool by which developers and users can use one communication channel. In fact, the main principle of Facebook design is not to interfere with the user, just to help him share stories. ”

Hearing that the company is positioning itself as a “tool”, and at the same time trying to “not interfere with the user”, is very encouraging. But for Facebook, such support for mobile developers is not just a gesture of goodwill. The benefit of the company from the appeals of numerous applications - filling feeds, profiles, chronicles of users with various information.

Unobtrusive Open Graph is still easy to abuse.

In the ideal version for Facebook, we would use any applications on our phone, and in the chronicles at this time the activity would be displayed - undoubtedly useful, interesting, and potentially very important, about which all friends would like to know. The company wants to support the growth of just such applications, in which “the user is always in the center of attention,” according to Purdy.
This “ideal option” sounds more like the worst dream for lawyers specializing in the protection of private information, but Facebook certainly understands the alertness of people in this matter and does everything possible to make the process of granting permissions less confusing and incomprehensible. The company has greatly improved this system over the years, but the privacy mechanism is still complex and opaque. Also, Facebook could control the default settings of applications, which for most users are not comfortable. Early versions of Spotify integration have taught us that the unobtrusive Open Graph is easy to abuse. The conference was attended by a lawyer who warned developers “not to force users to marry without going to the first date” when it comes to granting permits. The burden of "making it beautiful" of course lies precisely with the developers.
If we postpone concerns about the security of personal data, the new platform of the company is intriguing not by the possibility of filling user feeds, but by how closely Facebook is woven into the new stage of Internet development. Let's call it the "Internet of mobile applications plus a worldwide network." And Facebook is intertwined so deeply that it is not difficult to imagine a world in which a company better understands iOS and Android users than Apple and Google, respectively. Imagine: each of your applications has a connection to Facebook, add to this what the network ALREADY knows about you from your profile, etc. - suddenly, even the all-knowing Google, it turns out, understands you not so well ...

“The telephone is the most“ social ”thing of all that you have”

So what could Facebook do with all this knowledge about you? The most obvious answer is advertising! The company could help developers place advertisements in the same manner as it helps with authorization and distribution of information. Advertising is much more profitable and much less annoying if it is aimed at a specific audience and has a clear context related to our interests, and here Facebook has all the advantages to achieve it. And the first steps to use the accumulated knowledge of applications for profit are already noticeable.
Facebook is actively pushing developers to consider their applications as part of the company's ecosystem. Taking into account the scale of smartphones and the risk of being crowded out by competitors, it becomes clear why Purdy was so enthusiastic about the importance of the central role that Facebook plays in our lives:

“Phone is the most“ social ”thing of all that you have. All friends, everything you ever did, everything you want to share - everything is on this device. Facebook’s main role is to provide the opportunity to share it all with friends. ”

I told Purdy that the presentation about smartphones was so passionate that the company could think about releasing its own device. He laughed, and this laughter did not make the impression that “wait for the news,” rather, denied this thought. If the company manages to realize that planned level of deep integration, there will simply be no need to create a special Facebook Phone! After all, every smartphone with at least one application will be Facebook Phone'om ...

Author : Dieter Bohn, editor of The Verge , original article November 16, 2012