Possible reason for Facebook's lack of interest in supporting WP8

[sueha]

Hey guys! I guess most of you have heard that Facebook is about to present "its new home on android", which could mean a version of android for the rumoured "Facebook phone". Just like Amazon did it with the kindle. It's pretty obvious that Facebook has no interest in supporting our growing platform by not developing a Facebook app (which is okay as long as Microsoft gets access to the APIs) and not developing an Instagram app (for which they dont even open the APIs to Microsoft). Instagram could be very popular especially on Windows Phones with all those cool trendy devices which set a kind of trend in my eyes.

Could it be that Facebook fears too strong competition in WP8 which results in not supporting our platform? Do they want to stop our momentum before they start releasing their "own" OS? Would it make sense to stop our momentum if they can stop possible switchers to join our platform and wait for the Facebook phone? I'm kinda surprised that nobody started this discussion yet. What do you guys think?

 

[nessinhaw]

what they will present is a sort of custom launcher dedicated to FB and they call it "FB Phone"...but it still runs on Android and i believe FB will never have an OS of its own...
and tbh, the FB app for Android is rly buggy, almost each update they make is always full of bad reviews, just go to Google Play and check it yourself!
for example the latest one (March 20th): i was reading user reviews and they all complain about news feed arriving 1 day later, pics not loading, force closes...and this is not something new, they always screw up something when they update!

in fact i know many pplz who prefer using the mobile site instead of the app...they only download it because of notifications and latest update seems to have messed them up!
i'm really curious to see how this FB dedicated launcher will work lol they can't even deliver a top bug-free experience for their app so it will be interesting!

and talking about WP now i think MS just need to give some love to their official app, it's not bad...it just lack some features and improvements and i'm still hoping MS will come with a major update to it! and i prefer MS to develop the offcial WP app for FB because they know Metro UI - who better than the ones who created it? I fear if FB itself makes an app for WP, it will end up as buggy as Android and i'm not sure they will be able to deliver a proper Metro UI integration in their app, perhaps they would just make a rushed port of the Android version...

and i don't think they wanna ruin WP momentum...what would they gain? our dear OS has LOTS of FB users as well...unless their love for Android is so great they wanna smash WP and bring pplz back to Android, which i don't think will happen lol...also perhaps the fact MS commited to make the app lifted their worries about it?

 

[JamesDax]

No, that's not the reason. And who says they have a lack of interest?

 

[ChMar]

FB lack of interest is because of Market share and the already integration of facebook in people hub. And we talk here about US market share primarily. Any "free" online service out there must pay for their servers developers, other employers, rent electrical bills, etc. So they somehow make money or they could not exist. All those services make money mostly by data mining you and I can point you to a lot of great FB examples on how they took this to the next level and then provide a way to advertise to their large customer base. They don't need to sell your data. No company in this world cares about individuals they care about masses of people(sure filtered by age, sex, location, preferences, etc). So they act as the middle man. They have your data on one side and can now go to companies who want to sell stuff to you and allow those companies to target you with ads based on your interests(the likes you gave, what you registered as favorite movies, etc). This way advertisers have more focused campaigns than on other type of medias(blogs, tv, radio) and results in increased customers versus the money spent on adds.

But data mining only works if you have a truly large pool of users. So considering the number of wp8 users (those in us mostly for financial reasons) and also taking in account you do have solutions to access facebook(web browser, people hub, ms app) there is no gain for the effort to create a whole permanent department(programmers, designers, cleaning ladies, toilet papers, rooms, etc) to create an app for wp8.

 

[finiterex]

+1 !!