With its new “Home” on Android gadgets, Facebook aims to put its social network at the center of people’s mobile experiences.
If users choose to download Facebook’s Home software starting April 12, the social network will become the hub of their Android smartphones. A phone from HTC that comes preloaded with Home will be available starting that day, with AT&T Inc. as the carrier.
The idea behind the software is to bring Facebook content right to the home screen, rather than requiring users to check apps. “Home” comes amid rapid growth in the number of people who access Facebook from phones and tablet computers. Of its 1.06 billion monthly users, 680 million log in to Facebook using a mobile gadget.
The service is part of Facebook’s move to shift its users’ focus from “apps and tasks” to people, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during Home’s unveiling at the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters Thursday.
The new product, which resides on the home screen of Android phones, is a family of apps designed to help people share things with their Facebook friends. Rather than seeing a set of apps for email, maps and other services when they first turn on their phones, users will be greeted with photos and updates from their Facebook feeds. There will be ads, too, eventually.
“We think this is the best version of Facebook there is,” Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg says users can have an experience on Android phones they can’t have on other platforms. That’s because Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, allowing others to adapt it to their needs.
Recognizing that text messaging is one of the most important tasks on a mobile phone, Facebook also showed off a feature called “chat heads.” This lets users communicate with their friends directly from their phone’s home screen — without opening a separate app.
The new Home service won’t be available on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices. Apple’s iOS and Mac operating systems include features that integrate Facebook’s services, but Zuckerberg says doing something like Home would require a closer partnership.
Apple had no immediate comment.
The deeper mobile integration will likely help Facebook to attract more mobile advertisers. Though mobile ads were a big concern for Facebook’s investors even before the company’s initial public offering last May, some of the worry has subsided as the company muscles its way into the market.
Last year, Facebook began showing ads to its mobile audience by shoehorning corporate-sponsored content into users’ news feeds, which also include updates from friends and brands they follow. Facebook now faces the challenge of showing people mobile ads without annoying or alienating them.
The mobile advertising market is growing quickly, thanks in large part to Facebook and Twitter, which also entered the space in 2012. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion, from $4.11 billion last year.
EMarketer said Wednesday that it expects Facebook Inc. to reap $965 million in U.S. mobile ad revenue in 2013. That’s about 2.5 times the $391 million in 2012, the first year Facebook started showing mobile ads.
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