Is Facebook Building Its Own Phone

Bangalore: Rumors of a Facebook phone are back in the news again. Facebook is working with cell phone maker HTC to build a smartphone with the Facebook social networking technology built into the core of the device. It also considered Samsung to make the device, but went with HTC instead. HTC has made at least two phones already with dedicated Facebook buttons. The Salsa and ChaCha, which have Facebook buttons, were introduced earlier this year. There are other phone manufacturers that have put Facebook buttons on their phones, including INQ Mobile and Motorola. The new phone by Facebook is code named Buffy and it will be based on a modified version of Android, which has been tweaked by Facebook so that its services are deeply integrated. Buffy is different from these devices by providing instant access to Facebook and it will have the social networking technology developed by the company integrated into the device like Windows phone OS has Facebook and twitter integrated within. Facebook mobile is not an important element for its social networking strategy, but it's yet to know why the company plans to build the device. If it chooses to build its own Facebook phone to face competition in the smartphone market.