“Facebook Home”
The use of a new Android launcher called Facebook Home designed to replace the existing home screen for Android devices has been rapidly declining in Korea. The unpopularity of Facebook’s new app is attributable to its failure to meet Koreans’ preferences for many cute and decorative functions. Also, it is due to a gap in sentiments between US and Korean information technologies.
According to market research firm Rankey.com on October 20, the arrival rate of Facebook Home in September was below 0.01% among Android launchers in the Android app market in Korea. The arrival rate means the proportion of app users to the number of Android devices users.
Last month, Beijing-based firm GO Launcher was Korea’s most favored home screen app for Android devices, with a 12.2% arrival rate. The second most popular one was Dodol Launcher, developed by the nation’s top Web portal Naver (4.2%), followed by Korea’s top messaging company Kakao’s KakaoHome (3.8%), and domestic portal site Daum’s Buzz Launcher (1.7%).
Based on Facebook’s huge popularity as the largest social networking site in the world, the company released Facebook Home on December 2012 so that its website can be used as a home screen for smartphones.
Through Facebook Home, photos on Facebook fully appear on the smartphone screen, thereby giving users a more pleasant experience. By comparison, seeing those images on a computer monitor is less pleasant due to their smaller size. In addition, Facebook Home enables users to instantly check updates from friends and acquaintances in their Facebook news feed. Hence, it is the best app for those users with Facebook mania.
However, it has a major drawback. The installation of Home prevents the use of other basic functions and designs provided on the Android market. That explains why Koreans do not prefer Facebook’s home screen app.