Facebook calling out to mobile developers in Asia
Facebook is continuing its efforts to bolster its mobile-web platform by reaching out to social media developers in Asia.
Facebook wants to bring developers into their Preferred Developer Consultant (PDC) programme to stamp them as one of their top 100 recommended developers. It will be tough competition and only the 'best' will get in, but in return will enjoy an exclusive business relationship with Facebook.
This is part of Facebook's continuing drive into the mobile market; with recent rumblings of its 'Buffy' smartphone resurfacing, the social networking giant seems their keen to establish themselves with a push towards HTML5 development. Facebook already launched a HTML5 Resource Center last month, and this focus allows them to avoid the issue of not having their own operating system.
Although it might be a little too late to try and bring a new smartphone onto an already saturated market, the emphasis on HTML5 could act as a strong draw for its flexibility.
Alexander Klienberg, head of Facebook's platform partnerships for the Asia-Pacific region, told APC that: "In this region we're seeing a lot of innovation in mobile, and in fact we're getting pushed by the developer community to go further in that direction".
Facebook's major incentive for developers is it's huge user base. Facebook has already proved incredibly popular in Indonesia, the second largest Facebook market.
Considering that around 350 million users are accessing the social network through mobile devices already, it is understandable that Facebook is capitalising on that customer base. Klienberg explained that the company's goal is, "really is to get to the point where you can develop for web and for mobile on Facebook and have those two things be seamless."
The current round of the PDC programme is taking submissions until December 6th with details available on Facebook for those with the skills to compete.
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