Facebook Phone On The Way?

There is big buzz this Sunday over a new report that Facebook might be building a phone. Yes, Facebook. One of the biggest social media networks on the planet featured in a new hit film, "The Social Network," which hits theaters on October first.

The report hit from TechCrunch on Sunday morning. The report talks of Facebook making their own phone software and having another company build them the hardware. This is just what Apple does, so this is no biggie, right? Google announced plans a year ago to release their own, and that one became the Nexus One.

Now why would Facebook want their own phone? They have apps on Android and iPhone, but apparently those apps just aren't strong enough. They don't do what Facebook wants them to do. The social media network wants to dig deeper into the service on user phones including going deep into the contacts, but the only way this can be done is if Facebook controls the operating system.

Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos are said to have been secretly working on the project. Both have experience at building operating systems and software. Hewitt helped create Firefox, and Papakipos was the man in charge at Google Chrome until he quit to work with Facebook back in June. Sounds like some big credentials!

Facebook has already denied the rumors swirling around the project this morning. According to The New York Times, a spokeswoman for Facebook, Jamie Schopflin, said the following: "The bottom line is that whenever we work on a deep integration, people want to call it a “Facebook Phone” because that’s such an attractive soundbite, but building phones is just not what we do."

So no Facebook phone? Yes? No? Maybe? What do you think? For the latest in tech news, go here.

© Regina Avalos