J.R.McHale

The consensus early reaction, the day after the Facebook Home announcement, appears to be:

• Facebook Home is well-designed, with some clever elements such as the messaging bubbles;
• Google and Android app developers will dislike Facebook’s lock/home-screen and launcher approach which makes Google services and 3rd party apps less visible;
• Facebook home might appeal to certain Android users in the United States (i.e., Facebook power users and mobile phone newbies), but Facebook Home might be more of a play for new users internationally, particularly in emerging markets;
• So what’s new: Facebook Home poses additional privacy concerns through enhanced data collection.

Facebook Home Link Round-up:

• What the Analysts are Saying: A dozen analyst reactions at CNN.Money.
• How Facebook Home Is (and Isn’t) an OS: Fast Company.
• App Developers Are Scared Facebook Home Will Bury Their Stuff: Business Insider.
• Facebook Home’s uneasy relationship with Google: Tim Carmody at The Verge.
• I Like It, but I Don’t Like It Like It: Farhad Manjoo at Slate.com.
• Facebook Home at First Glance: Web/App designer, Khoi Vinh.
• The Soul of a New (Facebook) Machine: The Atlantic.
• Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook Home, Money, and the Future of Communication: Steven Levy.

Google’s Android platform is powered by a novel technology that transcends conventional hardware and software. And just as Android hardware and software has looked to Apple for inspiration, this compelling new “flexibly adaptive logic” is also related to something that first originated within Apple. Flexibly adaptive logic, or “Flawgic,” allows the Android platform to terminate any sort of criticism before it can affect how the system performs. Flawgic is neither hardware nor software; it’s installed directly into public mindshare via a virus spread by talking heads.

At FastCompany: “Box’s 65-Year-Old Android Engineer Gives Your Startup Some Unsentimental Advice”

At The Walrus: “BlackBerry’s Boom: How the Canadian Smartphone Became a Nigerian Status Symbol” by Brianna Goldberg. Apparently, there is even a popular Nollywood film series ‘BlackBerry Babes’. According to Goldberg: “While North American business stories have been reporting on RIM’s spectacular decline, Africa has fallen hard for the Waterloo, Ontario, tech giant. RIM, now known simply as BlackBerry, is Africa’s number one smart phone vendor, and it is now the preferred brand in both South Africa and Nigeria, two cultural leaders for the continent. Second only to Asia’s mobile market, Africans already use 735 million cellphones.” Interesting read, but don’t be fooled: “BlackBerry 10 predicted to hold less than 5% market share through 2016”

Wired explains yesterday’s Supreme Court decision clarifying that the “first sale” doctrine of federal copyright law applies to foreign-purchase works imported into the United States: “Supreme Court Boosts Right to Resell Copyrighted Goods.” The Supreme Court’s opinion (pdf)

The first step to fixing the Android Marketplace has nothing to do with the Android Marketplace