Facebook popularity is beyond question. It has over 600 million users and might even cross a billion in 2011. The growth of Facebook can be attributed to its becoming hugely popular on smartphones. Facebook also got a positive response for its 0.facebook.com site which users can access from mobile devices without any data charges. But, Facebook is taking this to a whole new level for users who use feature phones and want to access Facebook from it.
Program Manager Mark Heynen stated in the announcement:
We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of phone they carry. Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren’t used by most people around the world. Today, we’re launching a new mobile app to bring Facebook to the most popular mobile phones around the world. The Facebook for Feature Phones app works on more than 2,500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and other manufacturers.
The number of people who use feature phones is way above than that of people, who use smartphones. Therefore, it can be anticipated quite easily that there’s a huge demand amongst the feature phone to use a Facebook applications from their phone. The app has been built with the participation of Snaptu, a mobile app provider which specializes in supporting smartphone-like experiences on feature phones. Snaptu has seen aggressive growth and boasts 3.4 million monthly active users, according to AppData.
Facebook does have a mobile site but if compared to this new app, that site lags in many areas. Heynen says, “The app provides a better Facebook experience for our most popular features, including an easier-to-navigate home screen, contact synchronization, and fast scrolling of photos and friend updates.”
Users no longer prefer a mere set of applications, rather they want a special feel and look, which the new app is ready to provide. The contact synchronization and hasty scrolling through photos and updates are useful no doubt, but the home screen’s look would be definitely very appealing. It will be similar to the home screens of iPhone and Android apps. Thus, feature phone users are going to get the experience of using smartphones on their feature phones.
Heynen detailed the launching of the new app and how Facebook progressed toward it. There are 14 mobile operators in total around the world who would offer free data access for first 90 days. Amongst them nine are launching today on m.fb.snaptu.com/f:
Dialog (Sri Lanka)
Life (Ukraine)
Play (Poland)
StarHub (Singapore)
STC (Saudi Arabia)
Three (Hong Kong)
Tunisiana (Tunisia)
Viva (Dominican Republic)
Vodafone (Romania)
The 5 other operators on which the app will be launching very soon are:
Mobilicity (Canada)
Reliance (India)
Telcel (Mexico)
TIM (Brazil)
Vivacom (Bulgaria)
TechCrunch got the following details after speaking to Snaptu CEO Ran Makavy and Henri Moissinac, Director of Facebook Mobile:
- The relationship between Snaptu and Facebook isn’t being discussed (i.e. they aren’t saying how much money is changing hands as part of their partnership, though they did say no ads are being shown in the app). They say that the relationship will be long-term as Snaptu continues to help improve the app.
- You can only use the application if you are on one of the supported carriers — even if you’re willing to pay your own data fees, the app simply won’t work if you’re on an unsupported carrier. It sounds like Facebook offered these carrier partners exclusivity to help sweeten the deal, but things may change down the line. Makavy points out that even if you can’t get the official Facebook app yet, you can still download Snaptu (and download their Facebook application from their), which is very similar.
- The 90-day free window begins today, not when the user first gets the app.
- Facebook found that the big hurdles facing feature-phone users were price and a lack of some functionality on m.facebook.com. Facebook Zero is meant to help with the first problem, this application helps with the latter (and Moissinac says that it should also use less data that m.facebook.com, which should make it cheaper as well).
The list of service providers with whom Facebook is launching shows that the social network is targeting the market beyond the US. Facebook has the largest userbase in the US, but India, Singapore, Canada and the other countries listed are potential markets for Facebook where the company has seen humongous growth through 2010.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] In fact Facebook has recently partnered with Snaptu to launch an app to allow users to access Facebook on feature phones. The app is at par with those of the smartphones and will give users access to Facebook services [...]
[...] sites. Facebook has also recently collaborated with Snaptu to bring a Facebook app for feature phones so that the number of users, who connect themselves with the site from mobile platforms now, [...]
[...] experience. Initially the company had launched the 0.facebook.com mobile site, and recently partnered with Snaptu to build a Facebook app for feature phones. The social network has also worked with [...]
[...] Twitter and LinkedIn and catering them to different feature phone devices. Earlier this year, they partnered with Facebook to bring an app for feature phones and just weeks ago they brought a LinkedIn app. [...]
[...] social network is keen on keeping its word. In January this year, Facebook partnered with Snaptu to bring an app for feature phones which gives user a smartphone like experience, and [...]
[...] had launched an app for feature phones, earlier this year, in association with Snaptu and later went on to [...]