Facebook Phone to use Android OS?

Facebook is making a smartphone and rumour has it that they will be using the Google Android operating system as the template.

The news may not come as a surprise to observers who have seen a tense competition forming between Google and Facebook over the years.

Facebook has attempted to take on many of Google's qualities including a similar advertising revenue system and search within Facebook.

When the owner of Wikipedia declared that he wanted his company to eventually replace Google, Wiki was quickly punished in the SERPs.

But Google would be powerless to stop Facebook adapting the Android OS. The social networking company, which now has 500 million users worldwide, wants to branch out and offer its services on a mobile platform.

Facebook liked the look of the Google Nexus One and the company realised it could not achieve what it wanted to simply through the use of an application.

Facebook mobile products head Erick Tseng, who was recently pinched from the Android mobile team, said at the MobileBeat 2010 conference: "We really see mobile as the future."

Facebook creatives Joe Hewitt, who previously worked on the Firefox browser, and Matthew Papakipos, whose experience includes Google Chrome OS, may now be turning their attentions to a Facebook phone.

Expect the Facebook phone to include a calendar based on your events and, of course, your extensive Facebook contact list. It also might make it easier to use Facebook applications such as Places.

Rather than building an operating system from scratch, Facebook will have access to one of the fastest-growing smartphone services and all of its third-party applications.

At the same time it is likely that a Facebook Phone would fragment users of the Android OS even more.