Facebook has a new app that they are launching called App Center. It is currently being tested by a beta group of users and is expected to be made available on a more wider scale shortly.
One launched, users will have access to the app center on a variety of devices including mobile phones and Internet browsers. Essentially, Facebook has emulated some of the other major players such as Apple who have their own app stores. The difference is that unlike the iTunes App Store where Apple users go to access and download apps for their iPhone and iPad, the Facebook App Center will use your Facebook profile to allow you easier access to websites that ask visitors to login using their Facebook logon ID.
One may wonder just why Facebook would be making this move and essentially, it would appear that this is just another step to try and compete with Google for search. Currently, Google is the premier destination for search. Users that want to look up information on a specific topic can go to Google, enter their query and begin looking through the results. In doing so, Google generates significant revenue as they have considerable information about the users and the information that they are searching for and in turn, they show ads that are specifically targeted to the visitor.
What Facebook is hoping for is that their user base which is nearly a billion strong can be moved away from Google as they browse the Internet. It is the social networking site’s hope that their users will add popular websites such as Etsy, Pinterest, Travelocity as well as other Facebook connected web pages to their new app and in doing so, they can bypass Google altogether. Facebook’s long term plan here is to continue to continue to grow their Facebook App Center by adding more and more sites so that eventually Facebook becomes the premier destination. Of course, Facebook has a long ways to go and Google will have another opinion on this topic.
