Remember the HTC Chacha (AKA HTC Status sold by AT&T) or the HTC Salsa? Both were supposed to be Facebook phones that were unveiled as the Mobile World Congress in 2001 back in February and both were a complete bust.

According to All Things Digital Facebook is still entertaining the thought of a Facebook phone and this time the new phone has been dubbed ‘Buffy”, after the television vampire slayer, the phone is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook as tweaked heavily (scary thought) to deeply integrate its services.

Facebook once again has chosen HTC to manufacture the Facebook phone after also considering Samsung. While the idea may sound “cool” to have a Facbook phone I really don’t see the practically of it. I like most readers here do have a Facebook account and I probably spend more time than I should on Facebook but I really don’t see the need to have a phone designed specifically for just Facebook. When I am out-in-about other than checking-in, I rarely open the application on my phone.

If the reports from All Things Digital are correct, Facebook may follow Amazon.com’s path in creating its own highly customized version of Android to power the phone. The problem with this strategy is, you lose access to core services of such as the Android Market and Gmail. This may be a moot issue to Facebook who probably consider running its own messaging and e-mail services on the device.

Again, going back to my previous statement, the idea may sound “cool” to have a Facebook powered phone but the practicality of it is not there. I have used HTC’s and Samsung’s integrated Facebook applications that sync my whole address book with Facebook and the outcome is always a huge address book filled with a bunch of people whom I maintain little to no contact with.

The Smartphone business is a very competitive business and with this idea still in development stages meaning we would not see an actual Facebook phone for at least another 12 to 18 months which would allow Google, Apple and Microsoft to leap way ahead in innovations leaving Facebook in the dust. If I were Facebook I would file this idea away and work on better Facebook applications for our devices.

UPDATE

The rumor spreading about the suspected “Facebook” phone have been shut down. There is no more speculating to be done. Facebook came forward and denied the rumors that a FB-branded handset was going to be announced.

Dan Rose, head of business development at the company however did say, “This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way. The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.”

So there you go geeks. Don’t you love when rumors are proven right or wrong?

END OF UPDATE:

Some people in this day in age just can’t get enough of Facebook can they? At least that’s how I look at it now, especially with HTC being rumored to have their very own “Facebook” phone. This device is said to be accounced at The Mobile World Congress show which will be very soon, February 14th through the 17th, in Barcelona, Spain.

The source of the information says that the rumors are true and HTC could possibly even show more than one “Facebook” phone at the MWC show. We aren’t sure how true this is but if so, HTC would potentially be increasing their revenue even more with all of the facebook fans out there. What do you think?

Some of the features rumored are that the phone will run on a tweaked version of Google’s Android operating system and will prominently display users’ Facebook messages and news feed on the home screen. Also suspected is the option of being able to call or email friends from information stored on their Facebook page.

Is there really a need for this? Would you get one yourself? We want to hear your thoughts. Let us know what you think in the comments box below.

Source: IM & CAM