Hot on the heels of two recent device launches from INQ and HTC, with both companies adding Facebook integration and (in the case of HTC's Salsa and ChaCha) a physical Facebook button to their smartphones, Facebook promises many more devices to bring similar functionality this year.
"In addition to these new phones from INQ and HTC," writes Facebook's Charles Wu in an official blog post, "you'll also be seeing similar deep Facebook integration on dozens of other devices over the course of this year. Some manufacturers will be highlighting Facebook as a part of their phones' on-screen interfaces, and others will use our brand as an element of the device hardware itself."
We've seen both approaches in the past, and Facebook - while shunning the thought of an official "Facebook phone" - seems to be intent on helping device manufacturers integrate Facebook with their phone's software.
Facebook's approach to this integration is a bit more high-key than Twitter's, whose CEO Dick Costolo recently said that Twitter is "like water" and that "Twitter already works on every device you’re going to hear about this week." We're fine with either approach; we're not sold on the concept of the "Facebook button," but we definitely believe that the smartphones of the future must have deep social network integration.