Monday, 13 May 2013
Voughan Smith, vice president of mobile partnerships at Facebook, refused to share any definitive date when the feature would be available on cellphones but said that the company's engineers were working to bringGraph Search to the mobile users. Launched with much fanfare, the feature allows users to search and filter information within Facebook in a more natural way compared to what search engines like Google and Bing offer.
Smith said that at Facebook mobile experience is a priority now. "A mobile phone is the most social device we have. And this is the reason why we see most of our growth coming from mobiles. For example, in India more and more people are accessing Facebook from mobiles," he said.
Recently the company said that out of its 1.1 billion users, around 750 million were actively using Facebook from mobile phones. In India, the company has 78 millions users and Smith said that a majority of them use Facebook on mobile phones.
"In 2008, only 20 million users were accessing Facebook from a mobile phone. Now in some countries like Japan, almost every Facebook user connects to the service through a mobile phone," said Smith.
The social-networking website recently introduced Facebook Home, a launcher-like app that takes over an Android phone and converts it into a kind of 'Facebook phone' by changing its homescreen with a widget and allowing people easy access to their Facebook timeline and friends. The company has also launched Facebook Messenger, an app that allows users to communicate with their Facebook contacts.
For now Facebook Home is only available on a handful of devices. Most of these devices are high-end phones. "We are working on bringing Facebook Home to more Android devices. More phones, including some of the phones sold by local brands, will be added to the list," said Smith.
Last week, Facebook announced partnership with Nokia and said that Facebook usage would be free on Asha 501 phone if the device was connected to Airtel or MTNL network. Smith said that the company was exploring similar partnership options with more cellphone makers in India.
"In the pre-launch testing of the service in Mexico we found that bundling Facebook with a phone is a win-win situation for all. Consumers love it because they can use Facebook for free and easily as we optimize the data use on the server-side to make the app work on even low-speed connection. Phone companies like it because it makes their phones more attractive. Telecom operator and Facebook like it because we get more users," said Smith.
