[samstave]

My (sure to be wrong) Facebook predictions:

* The Facebook Phone

* The Facebook Netbook

* Major user datamining product sales to global governments

* Acquiring binge (gaming, education (I think they will go for Khan Academy)

* video hosting

* Their own voip platform

Facebook still has a lot of room to innovate, not that they would necessarily be successful in each iteration. But I would say that the number one thing FB could do right now to have a major impact is to create an education platform.

If their nearly billion users can all take education throgh the platform that would be very game changing. Allow users to sign up for classes, watch them, participate on them and collaborate with other students directly through facebook - plus have their progress and status tracked and gamefied then we could see real growth.

As facebook could start absorbing every person on the planet that is newly born.

Seriously, if facebook didnt buy KhanAcademy and integrate it for this reason, then I would say they lack vision and are simply the worlds most bloated PHP website.

[vijayr]

I really really really hope Khan Academy doesn't sell to anyone, especially to FB

[magicalist]

The education thing is interesting (and didn't they recently restart some old intra-school features they had in the old days?), and there's a lot of opportunity in the Blackboard space.

The Khan Academy in particular, though, is a non-profit. I don't even resemble an expert on the subject, but I think that would make acquisition difficult to (practically) impossible. And even if it were legally easy, Salman Khan's success and ambitions makes it extremely unlikely he would agree to it (eg move from CC to "sign in using your facebook ID?").

A partnership might fall in line with their mission, though.

[pepdek]

I'd like to add to your list of Facebook products. * Facebook Search Engine.

[hackinthebochs]

I don't get why people seem to ignore this. If facebook added internet search to their site they would instantly become the second biggest provider. I would be very surprised if they weren't already working on this.

[yaix]

People go to FB to communicate, they go to G to search. Brands are associated with products. That's why this G+ thing is a bad idea, it totally waters down G's brand in search. FB offers Bing on their site, but still nobody uses that.

[hackinthebochs]

I don't think this is true for most people. This has been discussed on HN a few times. While the techie crowd usually has distinct sites for different purposes, this isn't true for most people. Facebook is the only thing a large number of people get on the internet for. Portals work at engaging visitors, it's just a matter of monetizing the eyeballs. Facebook has the engagement locked down, now they just need to monetize the eyeballs.

FB may have Bing search integrated, but its not in any prominent location. I've been on facebook for years and have never seen it, not once. Perhaps its integrated with facebook's people search? The point is, if they put a plain-ol internet search box on each users homepage it will get plenty of use. With the plenthora of data they're generating, internet search can be trojan horsed by way of a history/activity search.

[aurelianito]

Facebook does provide Bing searches integrated into the platform.

[pepdek]

I've never been thought; Oh I need to look up something... Let me Facebook it so they can Bing it for me.

[hackinthebochs]

But for people who are already on facebook its natural to just use the search box that's 5 inches away. For better or worse, facebook is the new homepage of the internet for a lot of people. There are endless ways they can monetize this.

[pepdek]

100% true. They'll unveil it soon enough. I bet it's Zuck's ace-in-the-hole.

[freehunter]

The Facebook Phone actually is planned.

http://allthingsd.com/20111121/the-facebook-phone-its-finall...

[draggnar]

if only zynga was so smart to make fun learning games instead of hamster cages

[samstave]

Heh - you'll have to wait for someone else to make a fun learning game - then Zynga can copy it.

[dredmorbius]

HN

[dan85]

How about a Facebook OS (maybe fork Chromium OS like Amazon did with Android)?