Social Media giant Facebook has gained one more mobile means of adding to their already humongous membership – the Vodafone 555 Blue, a smartphone which has a dedicated Facebook button.
As soon as they turn on the 555 Blue on, buyers will be able to log into their Facebook account or will be able to sign up for the social network, if they do not already have an account.
Currently, 250 million people access their Facebook accounts from their phones. Joanna Shields, Facebook’s vice president and managing director EMEA, said that the company hopes the device will drive new signups, especially, in the developing world.
“What they’ve done here is truly created the most brilliant product from the ground up,” said Shields. “It’s Facebook-enabled in all aspects.”
Giving details of the new device, The Guardian posts, “The phone runs on Vodafone’s proprietary operating system, rather than Android or any other smartphone OS.”
A joint-venture between Alcatel Lucent and TCL Communication of China, the Vodafone 555 Blue, has a 2.4-inch screen with a physical Qwerty keypad. Presented as a bridge between ultra cheap feature phones and more expensive branded smartphones, the device understandably lacks 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity, settling for 2.5G / EDGE instead.
Vodafone Group, terminals marketing director, Peter Becker-Pennrich is of the opinion that the lack of 3G or Wi-Fi will not impact users negatively since updates and messages will be sent to them over the air.
The 555 Blue has a two-megapixel camera and Micro-SD card slot, with a dedicated Facebook button on the keypad. It also has an Opera Mini web browser, which happens to have a nifty compression feature that should not only save bandwidth but also load web pages faster.
The 555 Blue will go on sale in August across various Vodafone territories, including the UK. It is expected to cost less than $100 (around £60) on a prepay tariff, which will include a bundle of data usage.
“This is all about driving data growth in the pre-pay segment,” said Becker-Pennrich, “How can we create an experience that is truly differentiating, and very relevant and enjoyable to that segment?”
However, as prices continue to fall for Android smartphones on pre-pay contracts, the 555 Blue will face stiff competition in countries like the UK where it will launch against the likes of the Orange Barcelona and cheap handsets like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8, the LG Viewty Snap and LG Cookie Fresh. It is expected to be a hit in emerging mobile markets like India than in the Uk.
The deal is the latest mobile partnership for Facebook, which has repeatedly denied reports that it is looking to launch one dedicated ‘Facebook Phone’, claiming instead a strategy of deep integration with many handsets.
To that end, Facebook is a core feature of Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS, while handset manufacturer HTC has released two Android smartphones with dedicated Facebook button – the HTC Salsa and HTC ChaCha. The Vodafone 555 Blue’s design is similar to the latter right down to the blue Facebook button but without the touchscreen feature.
Earlier this year, INQ unveiled two Facebook phones – the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q, which also run on Android.
The company which has so far resisted the temptation to integrate Facebook into its iOS is Apple, which has struck a deal with Twitter instead and which will be a flagship feature of its upcoming iOS 5 software.
According to a TechCrunch scoop earlier this year, Facebook is thought to be working on an HTML5-based platform for social mobile web apps, codenamed Project Spartan.
It is expected to bring Facebook’s apps platform to iOS and other smartphones, complete with the Facebook Credits payment system.
However, handsets like the 555 Blue reflect Facebook’s efforts to drive usage in emerging markets. In this direction, recently, Facebook launched a new Every Phone Java application that runs on more than 2,500 feature phones, and again signed deals with operators to remove data charges, albeit for a 90-day period only.