Social Networking, Android | featured news

Douglas Rushkoff says Facebook's new app just increases disorientation and isn't getting rave reviews from users... And when I looked up Facebook Home online to try to find out just what it was, the first search results that came up were from users sharing how to disable it. This way, consumers can buy the discounted phones on which Facebook Home ships, and turn them back into a regular Android smartphones, where Facebook is just another app we can use in our own good time.

Facebook announced their new social home screen replacement called Facebook Home last week, and today it's available in the Play Store for certain devices. The suite of apps puts more focus on your friends and social sharing than the separate apps you use to communicate, with a new home and lock screen, a new notifications area, and (of course) serious Facebook integration. Facebook Home is available for the HTC First, HTC One X and One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S III, and the Galaxy Note II. Support for the HTC One and Galaxy S4 are coming in the future, along with (hopefully) other devices. Check out the video above to see it in action, read our original post for more information, and if you have a supported device, hit the link below to try it out.

Facebook is developing software for Android mobile devices that would display content from Facebook accounts on a smartphone's home screen.

Yes, this again. Facebook on Thursday sent out invitations for a press event that promised to show off the company’s “new home on Android,” which naturally led to fresh speculation about the company’s intention to produce its own Facebook-centric smartphone.

Over the weekend, Facebook added a stalkerish feature called "Find Friends Nearby" to its mobile website; on Monday, it was gone. "Find Friends Nearby" let users of iOS and Android devices locate BFFs — and perhaps nBFFs (never BFFS) — who were within range.

Poor Instagram users. First, their beloved photo-sharing application moves from iPhone-only exclusivity to the Android phone masses. A week later, Facebook swallows up the tiny startup behind the app for $1 billion. The purchase sparked worries that Facebook might shutter Instagram or change it for the worse by harvesting their personal information or shoving ads into their carefully curated photo streams.

Facebook is working with HTC to develop a phone that has a much deeper integration with the social network than any previous "Facebook phone." That's according to a report from All Things D, which says the phone is probably 12 to 18 months away from hitting store shelves.

All the people who use these clients on Android, Blackberry and IOS were no longer able to gain access to the popular social network from their mobile device.

Google are expected to unveil a social-networking mobile phone today, which integrates online-sharing sites Twitter and Facebook and Flickr into its software.