Thursday, January 31, 2013

[ Technology-News] FacebookFacebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile

Unknown Facebook , Technology

Facebook Now Has More Than 1.06 Billion Monthly Active Users, 618 Million Daily, 680 Million On Mobile Facebook has today shared its financial stats for the fourth quarter of last year, and in doing so, has dropped yet another installment of its ever-impressive user statistics. As has been the case consistently over the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has exceeded quite a few milestones, and the world’s most popular social network of all time has has now passed the 1.06 billion monthly active user (MAU) mark.
The social company had long been expected to pass the monumental billion mark before eventually doing so in October of last year, but the growth since then – some 60 million active users – is pretty startling in itself. As well as that, the number of daily active users (DAUs) averaged at more than 618 million through December 2012, with the number of monthly active mobile users hitting more than two-thirds of a billion, at 680 million.
Facebook Stock

Signups on a social network like Facebook are one thing, but keeping a user base interested enough to remain active month-in, month-out is something Zuck and his development team seem to have mastered down to a fine art. The 1.06 billion MAUs as of December 31st, 2012, was an increase of 25% year-on-year, while the number of DAUs equated to a 28% year-on-year surge.
But the real juice arrives in the progress of mobile. It is certainly a field Facebook had initial teething issues with, but since releasing version 5 for both iOS and Android, things have continued to progress. The number of daily active users on mobile devices such as the Nexus 7, iPad, iPhone and Galaxy S III exceeded the number of web daily active users for the first time in Q4 2012, and given the way the market is continuing to lean on mobile devices – particularly with social apps and services – the swing is certain to stay in favor of mobile indefinitely from here on in.
Facebook mobile

The portion of Facebook users logging in on mobile devices stood at around 40 per cent in 2011, and passed the 50 percent mark in 2012. Some commentators suspect that figure could rise to as much as 70 per cent by the end of this year, as users look to their smartphones and tablets for their fix of the world’s most populous social hunt.
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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Zuckerberg Denies the Facebook Phone. What's the Evidence? (Videos)

Unknown Facebook , Mobile

Zuckerberg Denies the Facebook Phone. What's the Evidence?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday in the company's first-ever earnings call that "it wouldn't really make much sense" for the social networking monolith to build its own smartphone.
A "Facebook phone" has been rumored for sometime, however — and many analysts regard its appearance as a matter of when, not if.
So what's the evidence that a mobile device based entirely around the social network is on its way?
Back in November of last year, the scuttlebutt originally reported by All Things D was that Facebook and HTC were working together to develop a phone codenamed "Buffy" that would hit store shelves in 12 to 18 months — as soon as this coming fall.
Buffy was said to run on a modified version of Android, tweaked heavily to revolve more prominently around Facebook and HTML5 support.
Then The New York Times reported this May that Facebook had hired "more than a half dozen" former Apple engineers who had previously worked on the iPhone or iPad to help build hardware for a Facebook phone. Finally, a Bloomberg report earlier this month reiterated much of what ATD reported in November, but pegged the mysterious "Facebook phone" launch to mid-2013.
The anticipation has grown so great that some designers have already began mocking up Facebook phone concepts (see gallery below).
While Zuckerberg denied the logic of Facebook building a phone, there are plenty of reasons why doing so would, in fact, make a lot of sense.
Facebook has been widely criticized for struggling to adapt to an increasingly mobile web, which most analysts see as dominating the emerging wave of digital life. One hedge fund manager recently predicted that Facebook's mobile sluggishness would lead to the company virtually disappearing by the year 2020.
A Facebook-centric operating system — on a Facebook-branded smartphone — could go a long way toward capturing more mobile users and ad dollars.
So have all the rumors simply been hot air and will Facebook instead focus its efforts on improving a widely maligned mobile app? Or is Zuckerberg simply hedging his bets with some tricky wordplay, and a Facebook phone is in fact on the way? Let us know your take in the comments.

Facebook Smartphone Concept

1. The Facebook Phone
A Facebook smartphone concept on Yanko Design -- and created by designer Michal Bonikowski -- gives us a look into what the device could potentially look like.
Image via Yanko Design
2. Front Look
Featuring a sleek case in Facebook’s signature blue, the device is made from metal and touts a 4.2-inch screen.
Image via Yanko Design
3. Back View
It also features a 5-megapixel camera in the front and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.
Image via Yanko Design
4. The Full Concept
A look at both sides.
Image via Yanko Design
5. Docking Station
Bonikowski also included in his design a docking and charging station.
Image via Yanko Design

Facebook Phone Part 3

The first Facebook Phone opened up a whole lot of questions and the primary one was, why the hell is it blue! To set the record straight and to give the concept a new lease of life, Michal revisited the design with an HTC approach. Like it better? Yeah, I do; how about you?

Designer: Michal Bonikowski