Facebook Launches App Center With Over 600 Apps 55
Mattygfunk1 writes "Facebook is following the leader and launching its own app store. The move is intended to encourage longer browsing sessions from users and attract attention from software developers, in addition to allowing more personalized advertising. 'Each app will generally allow the user to install it as a Facebook application. However, a "send to mobile" will also appear if the app has a mobile app from either the Apple iOS App Store or else the Google Play store. In either case, the app can be sent to a user's phone and can be installed there.' It's currently only available in the U.S., with more countries to follow in the coming weeks."
Re:Facebook Fone? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly what it is for.
They are borrowing the app store model from Apple and the advertising-supported model from Google to produce low-end smart phones for the "facebook generation", probably with some kind of data plan subsidy to make them cost competitive for the lower-income types who'd own a real smartphone if the data plans weren't so expensive.
High-profile app vendors who are on iOS, Android and Windows will just add another platform to be on, giving Facebook the "10% of the apps satisfy 90% of the people" kind of popularity, which is probably adequate for the people who would consider a Facebook phone anyway.