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Social network behemoth Facebook has outlined the plans it hopes will dominate the mobile market. The plan, announced by cofounder Mark Zuckerberg at the firm's Palo Alto headquarters in California's Silicon Valley, hinges on offering third party retailers the chance to tap into Facebook's giant social network via mobile devices.
Facebook's mobile usership has increased from 65 million to 200 million in the past year, triggering the company's push for a "mobile, social, local" combination. "You can rethink any product and rethink it to be social. Mobile is a big area of expansion and a huge new space," said Zuckerberg. "Combining those things together brings big opportunities for new companies to be built and for industries to be disrupted."
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The move allows companies such as Gap and MacDonalds to offer users deals and offers when they use Facebook's Places feature. And with Facebook's huge scale compared to it rivals, Forrester analyst Augie Ray claimed that today could spell the death of smaller, similar firms. "This deals product is a game changer," he told the BBC.
"When you consider that check-in sites like Foursquare has five million users and Facebook has 500 million, you begin to get a sense of where this can scale," added Ray. "While so many people were eager to try out Facebook Places, it didn't become that widely adopted because there was no end benefit to the user. That all changes now and helps make Facebook the dominant force on mobile right now."
But while Zuckerberg and co. may be gunning for the mobile social networking market, the world's youngest billionnaire insists that Facebook won't be adding smartphones or tablets to its portfolio. ""Our goal is to make everyone social. If you are building an iPhone your goal is to get as many phones out there. Our goal is to be social," he said.
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FEATURED COMMENT
The power of social on mobile devices is a lot bigger than just an offer/deal on a map/location. The graal is to be able