Yet, after personally using Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Home on my own Android smartphone, I can tell you that Home isn’t worth writing about. Instead, Facebook’s messenger update is much more substantial.
Facebook Home sucks
To put it bluntly, Facebook Home is awful. I simply can’t see how anyone — except the most ardent of Facebook addicts — would use it. It gets rid of the traditional Android interface in favor of a confusing control scheme based around swipes.
A user can still get to their apps, but now only through an app drawer. Gone are the widgets that set Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Android apart from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS.
Granted, for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) addicts there’s much to like. It makes it easier to interact directly with Facebook, upload pictures, change a status and so on. But for those whose Facebook usage is just a tiny sliver of their daily smartphone tasks, stay away.
The real innovation is chat heads
Rather, as Facebook was creating Home, it was also updating its messenger app. That update — the implementation of chat heads — is much more revolutionary.
Now, when someone with the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) messenger app on their Android phone gets a message on Facebook, a small circle of the message sender’s head appears in an icon on the user’s phone screen — a chat head. That might sound annoying, but as the heads are easily moved around or closed, they are relatively painless.
(An iPhone user can get a similar experience, but only while using the actual Facebook app.)
What’s so interesting about the chat heads? Well, it makes Facebook messenger a true alternative to text messaging.
Many of the people I text with on a daily basis — friends, family — I’m also friends with on Facebook. What’s more, many of these people have smartphones and Facebook apps on them. There’s nothing to stop us from using Facebook messenger as an alternative to texting, yet we rarely do.
Facebook chat heads completely changes that. With floating chat heads on your screen, it’s much more likely that you’ll turn to Facebook messenger when you need to say something, rather than fire off a text.
Obviously, not everyone people text with are connected to them on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), or have smartphones with the Facebook messenger app. Thus, Facebook won’t completely replace texting anytime soon, but it’s definitely a step in that direction.
Google seems poised to go in that direction as well
For its part, Google seems ready to go in that direction, too. The company has been rumored to be in the market for WhatsApp — a multi-platform mobile app designed to literally replace texting.
On its website, the company defines WhatsApp as a “cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS.”
If Google was interested in WhatsApp, it might be expected to use the app’s technology for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Babble, its anticipated new messaging service. According to Android Geeks, Babble will be showcased in May and will come integrated with the next version of Android.
Babble will reportedly be an alternative to BlackBerry messenger, and will unify Google’s various chat services — Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Voice, Hangout, etc.
Without seeing Babble in action, it’s too early to say whether or not it could kill off the need for text messaging entirely. But, like Facebook and its chat heads, it will certainly give users a very powerful alternative.
Should carriers worry?
Mobile carriers like Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) could be threatened by the trend away from text messaging. Texts have long been one of the carriers’ most profitable businesses.
Fears about the damaging effects of app alternatives to texting have been widespread for years. In a story from October, 2011, The New York Times cites Sanford analyst Craig Moffett, who notes that Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Wireless generates about 12% of its revenue from texting.
But despite fears stretching way back, it wasn’t until last November that text messaging declined for the first time ever in the US — and even then, only by a minor amount. Still, with app-based alternatives becoming more robust, that decline looks poised to accelerate in the coming quarters.
Facebook’s April surprise
Although Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Home looks to be a dud for the time being, the updated messenger app should make Facebook more of an alternative to text messaging — and thus a threat to the mobile carriers. Google will likely follow in the coming months, and the popularity of texting should continue to drop.
The article Facebook Home Isn’t the Company’s Biggest Mobile Innovation originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Salvatore “Sam” Mattera.
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