{"id":74777,"date":"2013-04-04T19:49:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T17:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=74777"},"modified":"2013-04-04T20:44:39","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T18:44:39","slug":"facebook-home-for-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/74777-facebook-home-for-android.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Home for Android"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook Inc unveiled “Home” software on Thursday that will integrate the social network more completely with Android users’ smartphones.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s Home software plans to place the world\u2019s social network front and center on Android users\u2019 smartphones, a move that may divert users from Google Inc services and steal some of its rival\u2019s momentum in the fast-growing mobile arena.<\/p>\n

Its new family of apps will let users display mobile versions of their newsfeed and messages prominently on the home screens of a wide range of devices based on Google\u2019s Android operating system, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters.<\/p>\n

Shares in Facebook climbed 2 percent to $26.83 in the afternoon. Google stock was off 1.5 percent at $793.81.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we need to go into those apps in the first place to see what\u2019s going on with those we care about?\u201d Zuckerberg told the hundreds of reporters and industry executives gathered at Facebook\u2019s Menlo Park campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to bring all this content to the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>

Facebook Home Cover Feed<\/p><\/div>\n

Facebook executives showed a new \u201cchatheads\u201d messaging service and \u201ccoverfeed\u201d \u2014 both of which dominate users\u2019 home screens and continuously feed messages, photos, status updates and other content from Facebook\u2019s network.<\/p>\n

\u201cHome\u201d brings the competition between the two Web superpowers to the mobile front, which is becoming many consumers\u2019 primary conduit to the Internet. Facebook, the world\u2019s largest social network, and Google, the dominant Internet search engine, are locked in battle for Internet users\u2019 time online and for advertising dollars.<\/p>\n

For Facebook, bolstering its mobile presence is critical. Nearly 70 percent of Facebook members used mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to access its service at the end of 2012, and 157 million of Facebook\u2019s roughly 1 billion users accessed the service solely on a mobile device.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>

Facebook Home<\/p><\/div>\n

The company has stepped up efforts to ensure that its revenue-generating ads can be viewed on mobile devices and Zuckerberg has said that the company\u2019s engineers are now focused on creating \u201cmobile-first experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reports that Facebook was developing its own smartphone have sporadically appeared for years though Zuckerberg has shot them one down, saying that building a Facebook phone would be \u201cthe wrong strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

With specialized software that adds a layer on top of Android, Facebook may get many of the benefits of having its own phone without the costs and risks of actually building a hardware device.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>

Facebook Home App Launcher<\/p><\/div>\n

Facebook Home will be available for free download on 12 April from the Google Play Store on certain devices, including the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II.<\/p>\n

More Facebook news<\/h3>\n

Facebook\u2019s Android plans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s greatest threat: mobile messaging<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Facebook smartphone on the way?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook unveiled “Home” software on Thursday that will integrate the social network more completely with Android users’ smartphones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":74773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17934],"tags":[161,35,1767],"class_list":["post-74777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smartphones","tag-facebook","tag-headline","tag-mark-zuckerberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74779,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74777\/revisions\/74779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}