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A phone could give FB plenty of new chances to capture data. What if, instead of sending a text message to someone, the FB phone sends a FB message or initiates a FB live chat session with them instead. If the FB phone became ubiquitious enough, they could challenge the space currently owned by texting (which would be really annoying for developers and the market, but great for FB). FB locks everyone in, AND they get to use all that social data too.

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SMS is so ubiquitous because everyone with a (mobile) phone number can use it. IM always had this problem: some of your friends on MSN, some on AIM, etc.

I certainly agree there are opportunities for better FB integration into mobile devices but I don't think that translates to a viable business in making mobile phones (imho).

It's a bit like developing your own OS to compete with Windows because you want a better version of Outlook.

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