[dkrich]

"By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen."

There's always a flip-side to this argument though, and that is that by not heavily investing, there really are pretty low barriers to entry for other tech companies with means.

What prevents Twitter or Google from releasing the exact same thing and then splitting this market proportionally to the market for social networks/new sites in general? I rarely use Facebook so this release has little utility for me. I fully understand I'm not representative of everyone and that there are many teenage girls who will fall over themselves to install it when it comes out.

But if Twitter or even Yahoo released a similar product, I have to believe I would be a lot more likely to install it. This to me just seems like a spruced-up notification system for Facebook. I don't really think it adds a whole lot to their bottom line or site usage.