Facebook Home is all but dead

Does anyone remember Facebook Home? The software Facebook worked on for Android devices which allowed people to have quicker access to Facebook features? Anyone? Well, if you haven’t heard of it, you won’t be going forward as Facebook has let go of the original engineers of Facebook Home according to the New York Times. Facebook Home was the software for the HTCFirst or “Facebook phone” as some call it.

The software wasn’t even six months old when things started going downhill quickly with bad reviews, stability issues and a disappointing public statement from Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, things got so badly, so quickly that BGR reported that AT&T sales representatives did not like Facebook Home or the HTCFirst at all, “and they made little if any effort to sell the handset to customers.” Ouch.

As the New York Times stated recently:

“Recently, Facebook has shifted to a multi-app strategy, emphasizing other mobile offerings like Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger as popular stand-alone additions to accompany its main app. It has also shifted resources. For instance, Joey Flynn, who was the lead designer for Facebook Home, left the project to design and launch Slingshot, an app similar to disappearing photo sharing service Snapchat. Other former Home team members, like product director Adam Mosseri, have gone on to focus more on other mobile projects.” – New York Times

As Boy Genius Report noted last year, things did not start well for the Facebook phone when AT&T dropped the price of phone to $0.99 just one month after its debut.

“(We have) learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTCFirst have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone. Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTCFirst, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC. According to our source, AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide through last week when the phone’s price was slashed to $0.99.” – BGR.com

Therefore, Facebook Home will go the way of Facebook’s Poke and Camera apps?