Zuckerberg: Instead of a Facebook phone, think Facebook on every phone

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Wed Nov 3, 4:18 pm ET

So tell us, Mark: Is Facebook making its own phone? "No," Zuckerberg said bluntly during a much-anticipated briefing about Facebook's mobile plans. But just because Facebook isn't building a phone doesn't mean Facebook doesn't want to be on your phone—or on everyone's phone, no matter the platform.
Zuckerberg's big news wasn't about any one particular product, feature or developer API (although there were announcements for all three Wednesday), but rather that mobile would begin to play a much bigger part in Facebook's overall goal to "make everything social." (And by the way, the iPad "is not a mobile device," Zuckerberg insisted.)
Sure, Zuckerberg argued, you can already access your Facebook profile on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry handsets, and any handset with a mobile Web browser. In fact, more than 200 million Facebook users are already doing so, compared with a mere (and I use the word "mere" in relative terms, of course) 65 million just one year ago.
But Facebook is looking to turn even more cell phone users into Facebook users with the help of a trio of new features: the ability to log into a mobile app using your Facebook ID, with one click; allowing developers of location check-in apps like Foursquare, Loopt and Yelp to hook into Facebook's recently launched Places feature; and Deals, which lets merchants offer specials to mobile Facebook users who've checked into their businesses.
The new "single sign-on" feature is pretty simple. Participating third-party apps such as Groupon and Flixster will provide users a "Login with Facebook" button (as some third-party websites have). Click the button, and you're taken to a page where you must give the app permission to access your Facebook profile. Once that's done, you're logged in and ready to go.
The appeal, of course, is to vastly simplify the process of logging into a mobile app—no more keying in your credentials over and over on a tiny keypad. But you'll also have to be comfortable with giving the app permission to access your Facebook profile.
Next up: revamped tools for developers who want to more deeply connect their location-aware apps (think Loopt, Foursquare, Yelp and the like) to Facebook's Places application. Facebook's new location APIs now allow developers to publish check-ins from their apps to your Facebook Places info, meaning that anyone checking where their friends are on Facebook will see the latest check-ins from any Facebook pals using, say, the Yelp or Loopt mobile apps (provided they've logged into their Facebook accounts first, of course). Location-based app developers will also be able to draw venue info from Facebook, allowing smaller developers to create a check-in-type app without having to build their own database of restaurants, merchants, pubs and so on from the ground up.
Last but not least: Facebook is getting into the mobile coupon business with Deals, a new feature allowing local merchants to publish offers via Places to Facebook mobile users who check in with their businesses. Merchants can create deals using a simple form on their Facebook fan page, then publish the deal through Places; from there, mobile Facebook users looking for somewhere local to shop using Places can spot nearby deals (marked with a yellow tag), check in with the business that's offering the deal, and present the coupon screen on their handsets to a clerk or waiter to redeem the offer.
Naturally, many of these new features will be added to updated versions of Facebook for Android (available now) and the iPhone (coming in the next week or so). Update: The revamped Facebook app for iPhone just hit the App Store.
But those hoping for a Facebook for iPad announcement on Wednesday came away sorely disappointed.
"The iPad? The iPad isn't mobile, it's a computer!" said Zuckerberg in response to a reporter's query, making a touch-typing motion with his fingers. "It is not a mobile platform the same way a phone is."
Stepping in to smooth any ruffled features, Facebook mobile project manager Erick Tseng took the microphone to explain that the social networking giant is waiting for more—and different—tablets to hit the market before building a Facebook app for the iPad (if it makes a specific iPad app at all, that is). "The question is, How do we scale for a tablet form factor that doesn't lock us into a specific platform?" Tseng said.
Indeed, the emphasis throughout Wednesday's briefing seemed to be that Facebook wasn't looking at any one mobile platform but all of them. For example, Zuckerberg pointed out that the newly updated Facebook app for Android—which he admitted has been "traditionally a little behind" the iPhone app—now has "general parity" with its iOS counterpart. Zuckerberg was also careful to highlight the existing Facebook apps for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, not to mention Facebook on the mobile Web.
So what we're talking about here, essentially, is no single Facebook phone, nor an app for this smartphone platform or that one, but a broad mobile strategy that works "no matter what platform you're on" and facilitates a range of mobile activities ... all of which are intended to make you sign up for Facebook on your phone. You may love Facebook's mobile strategy or hate it, but it terms of its breathtaking scope, it's hard not to at least admire it.
It's ambitious, all right—but is it scary, too? Naturally, several questions from the assembled audience of journalists (I was watching remotely via video stream) focused on the issue of privacy—for example, what'll keep merchants from using your Facebook location info improperly?
The answer: Checking in using Places is an opt-in activity, meaning no one can see that you're at the Gap through Facebook unless you proactively checked in there. And besides, said Facebook's Tseng, you can still manage all your privacy options—including your mobile ones—using your Facebook privacy panel.
Still, there's no getting away from the fact that your Facebook information, as Zuckerberg often puts it, "wants" to be social—that's the whole purpose of Facebook, after all. If you don't want to be sharing your mobile activities or risk losing your privacy, you probably shouldn't use Facebook on your phone—or at all, for that matter.
What do you think? Do you like the idea of being able to sign into a mobile app through Facebook? How about using Yelp or Foursquare hand-in-hand with Facebook Places? Or getting offers from nearby merchants through your Facebook-enabled phone? Fire away below.