In the midst of all the Google Plus hype last week, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg dropped in an interview with reporters that the company is going to announce “something awesome” this week. The statement was cryptic and a giant tease to tech reporters looking for the next big story. Now Facebook has to live up to the words of its CEO and actually deliver something awesome.
Awesome is a pretty subjective word. What could be awesome to Zuckerberg could be lame to the rest of the world. What could that be? Powers of deduction around the rumor mill have pointed to some type of Skype integration with Facebook. Zuckerberg made his comments at the Seattle Facebook office. Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond are 15 miles from Seattle. Microsoft was an early investor in Facebook and has had a good relationship with the company. Microsoft bought Skype not long ago. Do all these signs lead to Skype integration within Facebook connected with a guiding hand from Microsoft? Or is it something else entirely, like new photo-sharing tools or an HTML5 application store? Let’s take a look at the rumors to see what kind of awesomeness could be released in Palo Alto, Calif. tomorrow.
Facebook & Skype
Back in September 2010, it appeared that Facebook and Skype were ready to announce “a deep integration partnership” that would bring Facebook the type of communications tools enjoyed by Google such as browser-integrated video chat. For some reason, that deal was never closed. At the time it looked like Skype would enable Facebook users to call and SMS their friends from Skype but the rumors made no mention of being able to video chat with friends from within the Facebook ecosystem in the browser. The ability to embed Skype directly into Facebook would certainly be a killer feature.
Microsoft and Facebook have a close relationship. Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook in 2007. More recently Microsoft debuted its “social search” capabilities by integrating Facebook data into Bing search results. Embedding Skype into Facebook would be a big win for Microsoft and a validation of the $8.5 billion it spent to acquire the service.
Google Plus has an exciting feature called Hangouts that allows up to 10 people to video chat in the same room. When it comes to real-time communications on the Internet, that is a powerful new tool. Will Skype integration into Facebook reach that level of “awesome?”
iPad Application, HTML5 Mobile Web Apps
According to Reuters, the 40-person Facebook team in Seattle has a background in mobile development. Does that mean that Facebook is finally going to release an iPad app or something similar in the mobile realm?
An iPad app does not seem like something that would fall into the “awesome” category. If Facebook was serious about an iPad application, it would have developed one by now, 15 months after the release of the original Apple tablet. A source tells TechCrunch that the announcement will not be an iPad app.
Facebook could still be going after the mobile realm though by releasing an HTML5 version of its platform that would be specifically designed for smartphones and tablets. Would that be the so-called “Project Spartan” that reportedly will try to create an application model to undercut iTunes? Maybe, though reports said that Project Spartan would not be available till mid-July at the earliest.
New Photo-Sharing Tools
When it comes to mobile photo sharing, Google Plus beats Facebook without a doubt. Yet, Facebook could be working on upgrading its photo-sharing tools that utilize sensor data on a device. If the Facebook team in Seattle is really a mobile-first operation, this might make sense. Facebook would like to create more connections using implicit data and as such creating a team of developers to emulate and add upon the ideas of photo-sharing app Color would make a lot of sense. Facebook + photo sharing + implicit data would probably fall into the category of “awesome.” This may or may not be another aspect of Spartan.
Facebook could also update its photo-sharing capabilities in the same rollout. Improvements to Facebook’s mobile uploads would be the ability to upload more than one photo at a time (or enabling “instant upload” the way Google Plus does) that could easily be shared with specific groups of people on Facebook but not the entire user stream.
We will be covering Facebook’s announcement tomorrow at 10 a.m. PST. What do you think? What kind of awesomeness do you want from Facebook? What do you think Facebook will announce on Wednesday? Let us know in the comments.
