Facebook CTO: We’re All About Mobile
It’s a well-cited stat that almost 200 million Facebook users access the network monthly on mobile devices. That’s out of a total user base that is approaching 600 million (1/10 of the planet).
At the Inside Mobile Apps conference in San Francisco, Facebook CTO Brett Taylor reiterated the company’s mobile efforts. He went as far as saying it will be a primary focus in 2011. In addition to the above stats, he asserted that Facebook mobile users are 2 times as active as desktop users.
“Mobile devices are inherently social,” he said during the on-stage interview with conference organizer Inside Network. He also took the opportunity to espouse his support of HTML5 as a development platform for Facebook.
One goal will be to create and improve more touch points to users. That includes things like gaming platforms (PS3, etc.), but more important the increasingly fragmenting universe of mobile devices (feature phones, smartphones, tablets, etc.). Single Sign On is one example.
In other Facebook mobile news, the company acquired Seattle-based Rel8tion. Little detail was given but Rel8tion’s focus on hyperlocal mobile ad targeting signals interest in further developing these areas — perhaps tied to Facebook Places.
Facebook considers it a “talent acquisition.”, with Rel8tion joining its growing Seattle office. According to AllThingsD, Founder Peter Wilson, formerly with Google, has been consulting with Facebook on setting up the Seattle office and will now be an engineering director.
Other founders include Scott Hannan, a VP at Pelago, which runs Whrrl, a mobile social net; and Nat Brown, a former VP at MySpace in Seattle and CTO iLike.com.
Facebook’s Maz Sharafi, who leads its Local Monetization effort, is keynoting at ILM East in Boston March 21-23.
Image Credit: TechCrunch
