There’s no denying that Facebook is among the largest companies in the 21st century, and it’s a tech giant only rivaled by other greats like Apple. In fact, we’d go as far as to bet that you’ll have zero chance of finding anyone you know who hasn’t heard of them. Now, Facebook is famously known for its application ecosystem and the face of everything social media, but now it’s planning to expand and establish itself in hardware with its very first smartwatch.
However, while branching off into wearables is the sensible choice going forward for a tech giant like Facebook, many skeptics aren’t too sure about this decision. So, to help grasp this news from a more objective standpoint, we’ll be taking a look at how well Facebook might fair in the smartwatch market, given its strong financial backbone, history, and the resources available to it.
Yes, Facebook Might Just Be Onto Something
Yes, Facebook does have an excellent fighting chance in the smartwatch market for obvious reasons. And, despite whatever may hold them back, we need to look at things realistically, given their capacity to create, innovate, and deliver. So, before we blind ourselves with bias, here are some of the reasons why Facebook might just be onto something:
- More Than Enough Resources: The pandemic fallout resulted in significant negative impacts on the world economy, crippling businesses, small and big alike, to their knees and hanging on by a thread with the help of stimulus checks. However, massive tech giants survived and managed to thrive in an environment that was met with increased online activity and a surge of active users. And, one of the major benefactors here is Facebook, a company with more than enough resources to invest in new ventures and opportunities. Based on their financial prowess alone, they’re more than capable of penetrating a new market like wearables.
- Decent Hardware Strongarm: Apart from the number of resources available to Facebook, we can’t disregard their fairly decent hardware strongarm. Sure, most people probably know Facebook for social media and online digital solutions, but we can’t forget that they also own Oculus, one of the leading companies in Virtual Reality headsets, equipment, and immersive experiences. So, it would be a big understatement to say that Facebook isn’t capable of expanding into hardware because they clearly have the talent available and the technology necessary to create something new.
- Integration of App Ecosystem: From WhatsApp, Instagram, to Facebook Messenger, Facebook owns a large majority of the existing social media space, which gives them an upper hand in integrating a seamless app ecosystem. It won’t be difficult for them to configure each separate app to work together and gives them the opportunity to allocate more resources into other features like a fitness tracking system to match all your resistance training and CrossFit workouts.
However, They Don’t Have The Best Track Record.
On the other hand, we can’t call this a fair comparison if we don’t bring up the fact that Facebook doesn’t typically have the best track record when it comes to entering the hardware space. For example, we have the previous HTC Facebook phones that were a complete flop and failed to break into the mainstream. Furthermore, we also have Facebook Portal, which still fails to stand out among other competitors in its market. So, given these two previous entries alone, it’s not looking too good.
#1 Data Privacy Concerns
While all tech companies acquire our data and sell it without us noticing, Facebook is among the most-controversial companies when it comes to data privacy and data protection. It has been at the forefront of data privacy scandals, and users are growing weary of their safety while using their applications. So, when you consider the fact that they’re planning to enter the smartwatch market, a device that literally tracks a lot of about you, the two don’t jive at all. Of course, you could give them the benefit of the doubt, but how far will that kindness get you in the world of information?
#2 High Standards to Meet
Number two, we also need to look at this from a quality standpoint and remember that there are numerous high-quality smartwatches available in the market right now. Unless Facebook comes up with something entirely new, features never seen before, or a price so competitive that it’s a worthwhile investment, they’ll struggle with the high standards set by other smartwatch makers. Plus, now that they’ve been vocal about their plans, companies will have their cards ready to play in the chance Facebook does come up with something relatively good. Overall, Facebook’s smartwatch is at serious risk of being eaten up by the competition.
But, They Could Still Prove Us All Wrong
Nevertheless, all these factors and plans are still up in the air, so nothing’s been set in stone yet. We can’t make any definite assumptions, so we’ll have to play the waiting game until more news or developments are released. So, how about you, do you think that Facebook might prove us all wrong?
