> A majority of non-techy types I know bought smart phones because they "do facebook". There is a deeply symbiotic relationship there, and woe is the mobile maker that couldn't provide a Facebook app.

I finally decided to upgrade my iPhone 3 a couple of months ago when the Facebook app stopped working for some obscure reason and I couldn't update the app anymore. I'm a programmer, but probably not a "techie".

Also, I think it's kind of wrong to continue making this distinction between "real life" and "FB-life" or "internet-life", as in "real life friends" (which are ok) versus "Facebook friends" (which presumably are just a "lie" or "fake").

I think the distinction is still useful to draw a line between those you legitimately interact with and those who are your social networking 'friends' solely because there's social pressure to accept them.

e.g. former coworkers, old high school friends, friends of friends, etc.

I also use the Facebook app on my Android, as I like to get real time notifications from really important people (my wife, my godson, my best friend).

However, they have a lot of improvements to do, starting with being freaking slow compared to going to facebook.com in the browser.

I bet you those same non-techy types would by MySpace phones.

Sure, but did you notice how they use Facebook? I've watched (and asked) several of my non-techy friends and there reaction was always the same: "Yeah, I just update my feed, look for updates of my friends and that's it."

I don't see how Facebook wants to make money of such an usage pattern, so at the moment it doesn't help them very much that people have smart phones to "do facebook".

If people have access to Facebook 24/7, in their pockets, they are more likely to become dependent on it in their daily lives.

The mobile app fuels the addiction which keeps people logged in and coming back every day on their browser.

Quite the opposite, in my experience. I can read my feed on my 'phone, with a better UI than the website (turns out native app beats webapp, even when it's tiny screen vs. desktop), so why would I ever bother going to the website?

Most of my FB friends seem to use the mobile app mainly for uploading photos, if my feed is to be believed. From that POV the Instagram acquisition makes sense. How they're going to make money from it I'm not sure, but location-based ads and third-party apps come to mind. Though I still have a hard time imagining the developer appeal for their hypothetical but inevitable mobile app platform.

Aren't Instagram photos geotagged by default? That would make Instagram essentially the "like" button for user tracking in meatspace.

FB wouldn't see everywhere a user goes, but they'd know when/where the user was, when they thought something was worth a picture.

And with the face-tagging stuff, they can get additional time-space data on photo subjects as well.

But facebook gets to see who is where at all times...