Mark Zuckerberg Tours Samsung, Facebook Phone Rumors Start Up Again


Wide spread speculation is littering the Internet as news that Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has taken a trip to South Korea, the home to smartphone makers Samsung.

Since Facebook Home launched in April this year, exclusively for HTC and Samsung handsets, rumors have been doing the rounds regarding whether Zuckerberg and Samsung will team up to create a more Facebook friendly mobile phone. However, as of yet, there has been no concrete evidence to back this up.

Even though there is no definite confirmation that Mark Zuckerberg is seeking Samsung support, there seems more than enough reasons for the Facebook co-founder to pursue this avenue.

If you consider that the latest sell figures for the HTC First, the Android-powered Facebook phone, are disappointing for all involved parties, then you can begin to understand why Zuckerberg might want to strengthen his position.

Although the Taiwanese company, HTC, believed that the mobile would be a popular hit with social networkers, the phone appears to have failed to live up to its hype and therefore seems the perfect reason for Zuckerberg to try to gain Facebook success via a different tactic.

According to an inside source who didn’t want to be identified, the owners of Facebook have every intention of making the social networking site as big as Google and therefore are eager to have the cooperation of technology giants, such as Samsung, to help them achieve this goal.

This does appear to be the case when you look at the new features Facebook is intending to add in order to keep users interested and coming back for more, most recent of which is news that the site will have clickable hashtags.

And then there is the news that a Facebook RSS Reader could be on its way to becoming a reality, which seems to be another indication that the social network site is eager to continue having a strong presence amongst Internet users.

However, although this could be Facebook’s long-term goal, the inside source believes that Zuckerberg and company could be in for a difficult pitch, especially when you consider that Samsung doesn’t want more competition to deal with.

With Google positioned as Samsung’s most formidable rival in the handset business, it seems unlikely that the respected brand would welcome yet another competitor.

Nevertheless, when you realize that LG Electronics is also based in South Korea and Zuckerberg hasn’t made contact with them, the likelihood that his trip is for anything other than business with Samsung doesn’t seem quite as plausible.

Until then, all we can do is keep our eyes peeled and await further news on the Mark Zuckerberg Samsung tour story.

 

[Image via The Korean Herald]

Share this article: Mark Zuckerberg Tours Samsung, Facebook Phone Rumors Start Up Again
More from Inquisitr