Facebook OS on a smartphone dubbed HTC First to debut on Thursday April 4th 2013 - Tyler Perry’s Temptation of Mobile Computing on Tablets and Smartphones is too hard to ignore

“It looks pretty much identical to the Facebook-HTC device that we described last week. Given that the image lines up with what [we] previously heard, we expect the device shown above to be the first, or one of the first, Facebook Home handsets.”

Excerpt from the blog 9to5Google that suggests that Facebook’s making a smartphone with HTC that’s running Facebook OS as reported by CNET News Tuesday April 2^nd, 2013

Facebook has plans to unveil an Android phone made by HTC that’s tailored exclusively for Facebook and its apps as noted in “Facebook on the verge of announcing HTC smartphone?”, published March 28, 2013 7:44 PM PDT by Dara Kerr, CNET News and “Facebook's Next Big Step: Its Own Phone”, published 3/29/2013 @ 10:42PM by Erika Morphy, Contributor, Forbes.

Here’s a copy of the invite below. For the analyst among you, analyze the invite away.

This is more than self-evident in their invite for a Thursday April 4^th 2013 10:00am Pacific event to be held at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park in California as per the article “Facebook says come see 'new home on Android' on April 4”, published March 28, 2013 5:16 PM PDT by Jennifer Van Grove, CNET News and “Facebook is – finally – unveiling the Facebook Phone April 4”, published March 29, 2013 By Francis Bea, DigitalTrends.

And it may be called the HTC First, originally codenamed “Myst”, according to @evleaks picture in pic.twitter.com/oYfT23Vhyy as noted in “HTC 'first' device may be Facebook's starter Home”, published April 2, 2013 2:32 PM PDT by Jennifer Van Grove, CNET News. HTC Myst would’ve been a bad name from the start, as that’s the name of a really nice immersive discovery and very artsy game.

By consensus, the FB smartphone may look something like this mockup by 9to5Google as shown below:

Trust me folks, this on-and-off denial by Facebook since 2010 is alive and kicking and is now about to be born, as evidenced by this CNET News article that delves into the history of the Facebook smartphone rumours entitled “Tracking the rumor that just won't die: The Facebook phone”, published March 30, 2013 4:00 AM PDT by Jennifer Van Grove, CNET News.

Ok Then. Moving. Right. Along!

So Facebook’s hooked up with HTC to make a cut-to-fit suit for Facebook. Apparently they’re taking my advice as proffered in my blog article entitled “Facebook extinct as Chrome to be No. 1 Browser in 2012AD – FB rides Bed Knobs and Broomsticks Mobile Revolution against Google+” and my Geezam blog article entitled “Facebook to introduce #Hashtags with emoticons, monetizing FB and making Open Graph Search Practical”.

My suggestion involves:

1.      Developing a Mobile Strategy that involves their partner Microsoft improving their Internet Explorer Browser with IE10, which they have actually done as stated in “IE reborn: Internet Explorer 10 arrives on Windows 7”, published February 26, 2013 6:00 AM PST by Seth Rosenblatt, CNET News

2.      Going into the Mobile OS game like the Mozilla Foundation’s doing with Firefox OS. Facebook may actually be planning to announce a Facebook OS on Thursday April 4^th 2013 as suggested by the presence of code suggesting a Facebook OS as noted in Facebook to put own spin on Android with 'new home,' report says, published April 1, 2013 8:03 AM PDT by Don Reisinger, CNET News

Investors aren’t so keen on the idea as the king of the hill, the Apple iPhone, already has the city well padlocked so to speak. Public interest in a smartphone with a Social Network deeply baked in to the point of being an OS is very low, according to the stats of analyst Retrevo as reported in “Facebook phone? Many consumers say 'meh”', published April 3, 2013 4:42 PM PDT by Eric Mack, CNET News that were conducted in mid-March 2013:

1.      3% of consumers said they would consider buying a Facebook phone

2.      15% of consumers said they might consider fully baked Social Networking Phone after learning more

3.      82% of consumers said they had no interest whatsoever

Additionally, Facebook’s already deeply integrated into the Apple iOS 6.0 as stated in my blog article entitled “Apple deeply integrating Facebook into iOS 6.0 - The Penguins of Madagascar Microsoft and Apple save the Devil in the Blue Dress”. Currently, their Advertising revenue is expected to peak at approximately US$1 billion in Mobile advertising revenue, or approximately 30% or the Mobile Advertisement market.

This according to analyst eMarketer as stated in the article “Facebook's mobile ad revenue forecasted to skyrocket in 2013”, published April 3, 2013 5:58 PM PDT by Dara Kerr, CNET News, despite having no solid Mobile Strategy

To quote eMarketer’s blog post on Tuesday April 3^rd 2013: “Facebook, the No. 2 mobile ad publisher in the country, accounted for 9.5 percent of mobile ad revenues in 2012 and is expected to take 13.2 percent this year. In the mobile display market, however, Facebook is on top, projected to grab nearly three in 10 dollars this year”.

So why’s Facebook planning to launch their own Smartphone again with HTC, possibly with their own Facebook OS, after the aforementioned failure of the HTC ChaCha, the HTC Salsa and the HTC Status as documented in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to add Emoticons to your Facebook posts”?

Well, for that answer, my previous posts above provide sufficient reason: Google’s dominance of Browser, Search and its own interest in its still nascent Social Network, Google+  as stated in my blog article entitled “Facebook extinct as Chrome to be No. 1 Browser in 2012AD – FB rides Bed Knobs and Broomsticks Mobile Revolution against Google+”.

Throw into that roaring bonfire that’s set to make Facebook Extinct on Desktops the shifting paradigm and steady rise of Mobile Computing on Smartphones and Tablets as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How the Apple iPad killed Ultrabooks, Printing and the Mouse as the World Rediscovers Tablets” and the reasons start to become clearer and clearer.

Like the Mozilla Foundation as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Firefox OS and Telecoms Providers debuts low-budget Alcatel One Touch”, Facebook’s gotta go Mobile with a low-cost Mobile phone running an Open Source LiMo (Linux Mobile) based HTNL Friendly and Android and Facebook porting friendly OS, that being Facebook OS and QUICKLY get into the App Economy to keep growing.

This as Samsung and Intel have joined forces to develope similar plans with Tizen OS to effectively replace Google Android as noted in my blog article entitled “MWC 2013 reveals Firefox OS & Tizen OS launching Second & Third Quarter 2013 respectively - Samsung's Despicable Me 2 & Mozilla practices The ABC's of Death”.

Despite the comments of CNET’s Kent German in the article “The idea of a Facebook Android version makes my head hurt”, published March 29, 2013 5:09 PM PDT by Kent German, CNET News, the more competitors in the smartphone ring, be it a forked version of Android or Facebook’s own OS, the merrier.

And despite the lack of interest as indicate in the Retrevo Stats, FB’s got a lot going for them ironically; in the Mobile Computing World of Tablets and Smartphones, people spend almost as much time on FB as using a smartphone’s Mobile Browser. This according to research by analyst Flurry as per the article “Facebook and mobile browsing: Pretty much the same thing”, published April 3, 2013 10:52 AM PDT by Jennifer Van Grove, CNET News.

Only Gaming’s wasting away more of a Tablet and smartphone user’s precious time, a conclusion arrived at from previous analysis by Flurry and the basis for a previous article recommending Freemium App development by Jamaicans in my Geezam Blog article entitled “Smartphones and Apps – Freemium Games are No. 1”.

This most recent set of Flurry stats is beautifully illustrated below:

By cursory glance, the stats are the same as back then:

1.      32% for Gaming

2.      18% for Facebook

3.      12% for Safari on Apple iPhone

4.      4% for Opera Mini’s which is popular of Blackberry smartphones (no surprised there)

Overall, Apps rule:

1.      20% for Browsers overall

2.      80% for Apps overall

Facebook needs to hurry, hence the impromptu and sudden invite and product launch, as time is of the essence and Tyler Perry’s Temptation (2013) of Mobile Computing on Tablets and Smartphones is too hard to ignore.

Stay tuned to the Geezam blog and my blog for more details on Facebook’s HTC First smartphone running Facebook OS.

Here’s the Link for the Facebook Event:

Facebook's new home on Android: Join us Thursday (live blog)