Facebook For Every Phone Coming To 'Dumb' Phones In India & Brazil
India & Brazil are budget phone heavens - with a large number of competing phone companies importing phones from China and selling them under their own brand name. While the market for smartphones is ever growing, majority of the phones continue to be the 'dumb' phones - being used to make/receive calls and texting. According to a report published in ToI, Facebook's engineers have been secretly working for over 2 years on a project to bring the portal to these phones. While most of the 'feature-phones' have vanished from the developed countries, India & Brazil continue to have them in bulk.
Facebook's initiative is called 'Facebook For Every Phone' and is expected to reach 100+ million people; or about 1 in every 8 people in the world who use Facebook via mobile. The devices used to access Facebook cost as little as $20 (~Rs. 1200). A lot of FB users who don't have the money to pay for the data consumption use the subsidized rates from phone carriers and handset makers. Facebook wants to reach out to these people.
According to a research marketing firm eMarketer, countries like India, Mexico, Brazil, Vietname, Indonesia etc. are among the fastest growing markets for the Internet and Social Networks via mobile phones. Facebook's challenge is to ensure that they've a strong mobile presence as people shift from desktops and laptops to mobile phones for their daily computing / entertainment needs. In 2012, Facebook updated their native app on Android and iOS platforms to ensure better browsing experience for the users. It also began including the ads so that the advertisers could have a wider reach.
For Facebook, one way to ensure the loyalty of the users is to make sure that their network is available via the budget phones. Apparently, the 'Facebook For Every Phone' project began with Facebook's acquisition of startup Snaptu in 2011. The engineering team from Snaptu was assigned to work on reducing the data consumption rates of the applications and ensure that the FB network was accessible from low-cost devices with lower screen resolutions.
Brian Blau, researcher at Gartner says that Facebook won't be able to realise their dream of socially connecting the world together without making the network available for people who don't use smartphones or computers.
We'd like to know from our readers whether this move from Facebook will get your Doodhwallah hooked on to the network; provided he doesn't already have an iPhone?
Via: #-Link-Snipped-#
Facebook's initiative is called 'Facebook For Every Phone' and is expected to reach 100+ million people; or about 1 in every 8 people in the world who use Facebook via mobile. The devices used to access Facebook cost as little as $20 (~Rs. 1200). A lot of FB users who don't have the money to pay for the data consumption use the subsidized rates from phone carriers and handset makers. Facebook wants to reach out to these people.
According to a research marketing firm eMarketer, countries like India, Mexico, Brazil, Vietname, Indonesia etc. are among the fastest growing markets for the Internet and Social Networks via mobile phones. Facebook's challenge is to ensure that they've a strong mobile presence as people shift from desktops and laptops to mobile phones for their daily computing / entertainment needs. In 2012, Facebook updated their native app on Android and iOS platforms to ensure better browsing experience for the users. It also began including the ads so that the advertisers could have a wider reach.
For Facebook, one way to ensure the loyalty of the users is to make sure that their network is available via the budget phones. Apparently, the 'Facebook For Every Phone' project began with Facebook's acquisition of startup Snaptu in 2011. The engineering team from Snaptu was assigned to work on reducing the data consumption rates of the applications and ensure that the FB network was accessible from low-cost devices with lower screen resolutions.
Brian Blau, researcher at Gartner says that Facebook won't be able to realise their dream of socially connecting the world together without making the network available for people who don't use smartphones or computers.
We'd like to know from our readers whether this move from Facebook will get your Doodhwallah hooked on to the network; provided he doesn't already have an iPhone?
Via: #-Link-Snipped-#
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