Today, smartphones usually only have 3 buttons: volume up, down and power button, with some exceptions like buttons for virtual assistants. However, back in the early 2010s, you could even see the shutter button on smartphones, but there were some phones back then that came with an even weirder hardware key, which was the…access button. Facebook.
If today, the wave of boycotting Facebook is happening strongly, more than 10 years ago, some manufacturers even tried to put hard buttons to access Facebook and their phones, showing the attractiveness of Facebook. at that time.
HTC launched two devices in 2011 that came with a dedicated Facebook button. The first is HTC Status, or ChaCha depending on the region, equipped with a keyboard and small touch screen. Then there’s the HTC Salsa, a fully touch device. Both have a Facebook shortcut that’s misplaced on the bottom edge of the phone.
HTC ChaCha
Pressing this key allows you to quickly access Facebook to share photos, videos, and status updates. It sounds pretty “funny” these days, but it was a somewhat interesting idea at the time.
Remember that this was a time when social media crimes were not as widespread as they are now. This is also a time when Facebook’s privacy misconduct has yet to happen or is unknown.
HTC Salsa
The two HTC devices when launched were both aimed at the entry-level segment, featuring a single-core 800Mhz chipset, 512MB of RAM, and expandable 512MB of storage. They have 5MP rear camera, VGA selfie camera and Android 2.3 Gingerbread pre-installed.
HTC is not the only phone company thinking about integrating the Facebook button on the device, Nokia also found this button necessary for young people and integrated it on the Asha phone in 2012.
Nokia Asha
However, HTC eventually went even further, releasing a true Facebook phone in 2013, the HTC First.
In terms of configuration, this is not a product aimed at the popular segment like ChaCha and Salsa, it is no less competitive than HTC One Mini or Galaxy S4 Mini. It has Snapdragon 400 chip, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front camera.
HTC First
This is still an Android smartphone with Android 4.1 operating system pre-installed, however, HTC has equipped it with the Facebook Home interface. In 2013, Facebook showed its ambition to break into the smartphone market by developing interfaces for phones.
Facebook Home’s lock screen shows status updates from friends, allowing you to drop Likes and comment on posts without unlocking your phone (for the more picky, they can change it depending on what you think). select this to have to unlock first).
Facebook Home interface
Facebook Home also offers a faster way to post status updates and brings in the Chat Heads feature that has been the default on Messenger ever since.
Facebook Home interface
However, Facebook Home has some limitations that make an open operating system like Android quite cramped, such as the inability to use widgets on the home screen and the general lack of customization.
The HTC First was clearly not well received, and AT&T slashed the contract price of the phone from $99 to just $0.99 less than a month after its launch. The carrier then decided to abandon the HTC First just a few days later due to slow sales.
Since then, we haven’t seen another Facebook-specific smartphone.
It is hard to imagine any manufacturer daring to launch a smartphone with a Facebook button, or a smartphone dedicated to Facebook, in 2022 before the many privacy scandals surrounding this social network. But things were clearly very different in 2011.
Meta shares (Facebook’s parent company) have continuously dropped during the past 2 weeks. This caused the capitalization of the Big Tech giant to plummet and evaporate a record of more than 200 billion USD.
The situation of Facebook in recent times is also not very bright. From April 2021, Apple allows iPhone users to choose which apps can track their behavior on the device. Google is also expected to follow Apple in the near future to protect Android users. This has a big impact on the revenue of ad-based monetization platforms like Facebook.
Besides, after a series of data scandals, Meta shares (Facebook’s parent company) have continuously dropped during the past 2 weeks. This caused the capitalization of the Big Tech giant to plummet and evaporate a record of more than 200 billion USD.
Thus, according to data from Bloomberg, with a market value of only 565 billion USD, Meta officially left the top 10 most valuable companies in the world. The group is currently ranked only 11th, behind China’s Tencent Holdings. Last year, Meta held the 6th position in the rankings with a market capitalization of more than 1 trillion USD.
Reference: AA