Halliburton, based out of Houston, Texas, is one of the largest energy services companies in the world. It has operations in more than 70 countries and employs over 60,000 people.

Given that information, you can see why it’s such a big deal that the company has recently announced its intentions to ditch RIM’s BlackBerry platform in favor of the iPhone and iOS…(...)
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RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins may have inherited a sinking ship, but he seems determined to explore all avenues in his attempt to find an escape route for the ailing Canadian firm.

Having previously been very keen to keep its BlackBerry Messenger crown jewel as a key feature that is exclusive to its hardware, BlackBerry smartphones may not be the only ones to support it some time in the future. RIM’s new CEO outlined his company’s openness to such a move during an interview with CrackBerry.

If RIM was to license its SMS-like instant messaging system to third parties then it could stript the firm’s handsets of arguably their biggest feature…(...)
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Apple may appear to be the biggest tablet vendor on the planet with the company selling iPads hand over fist, but it seems that end-users are not the only ones taking a shine to the tablet.

According to new figures from enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology, the iPad made up 96% of the tablets activated at the 2,000 companies that use its services.

The iPhone is proving popular in the enterprise also, with 53% of the smartphones activated being of the Apple variety…(...)
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Breaking news out of Waterloo, Canada tonight. Research In Motion’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down from their co-CEO roles. The company’s former COO, Thorsten Heins, has been tapped as their replacement.

RIM’s board of directors and major stock holders have been calling for the move for quite some time now. The company, which was once a major player in the smartphone industry, is now holding on to a dismal 6% of the market…(...)
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The Skype-to-Facebook functionality, found in the Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows released last week, allows users to make Skype calls to one another without leaving Facebook. In order to use the feature, users must link their Skype and Facebook accounts and then launch calls from a video call button that appears after selecting a Facebook friend. Facebook first introduced Skype integrations this year, several months before Microsoft acquired Skype in October.

Facebook’s Messenger client for Windows 7 is a bit more involved, enabling users to access three core real-time features of the Facebook platform directly from their desktops. TechCrunch has confirmed that the client is currently in limited beta on the platform and is wholly developed by Facebook — not as part of a new partnership with Microsoft. Facebook has been experimenting with different ways to package Chat in native apps in the past year, including launching a standalone mobile group chat app for iOS, Android and BlackBerry in August.

It may be worth noting that these features move Facebook further into territory that Google has expanded into in recent years as well, while Google is still trying to get Google+ growing to larger scale.

Now available in App World via Facebook’s About page, the BlackBerry version of the push notification and SMS app could become a competitor to RIM’s native BlackBerry Messenger service. With the feature additions Messenger now more closely approximates the web version of Facebook Chat, and surpasses the built-in Chat functionality of the primary Facebook mobile apps. Facebook Messenger can now better achieve its purpose of allowing low-friction, cross-platform instant messaging.

The initial release of Messenger in August gave users a way to communicate with Facebook friends and their phone contacts without having to decide what device or platform to route a message to. Friends without Facebook receive messages as SMS, those with the app receive push notifications, those online on the web version of Facebook receive Chats, and those offline receive Facebook Messages in their inbox.

However, users had to search for friends individually to determine their online status and add them to a conversation. There was no way to easily add friends they frequently Chatted with to a conversation. There was also no way to tell if someone else was typing a Message to you, leading people to cut each other off in mid-sentence. BlackBerry users couldn’t access the app and had to Chat using the primary Facebook app or SMS, leading some to stick to BBMing with their other BlackBerry-carrying friends.

Today’s update solves all these problems. When users go to start a conversation or add friends to an existing thread, they’ll first see a list of their closest friends and their online statuses — whether online on the web, on their mobile device, or offline. Below this, users see an alphabetical list of all their online friends, and can also search for offline friends. This means that if users just want to Chat but not with anyone in particular, they’ll see options of readily available friends, which could increase usage of the app.

In addition to new features, 22 new languages have been added to the Android versions, and 12 more have been added for iPhone. In September, Facebook also made the app available in the UK and Ireland.

According to AppData, the iOS and Android Messenger apps have been growing relatively steadily, but have still only reached 1-2% of the audience of the primary Facebook apps for those operating systems. Messenger for iOS has 530,000 daily active users and 1.9 million monthly active users compared to Facebook for iPhone’s 52.3 million DAU and 92.5 million MAU. Messenger for Android has 780,000 DAU and 1.6 million MAU compared to Facebook for Android’s 47.9 million DAU and 70.9 million MAU.

With BBM already ingrained in BlackBerry user behavior patterns, we expect Messenger for BlackBerry to achieve less than 1% of Facebook for BlackBerry’s 28.6 million DAU. Still, the ability to chat for free regardless of a friend’s device should be appealing to BBM users and could steal some of them away. Meanwhile, the new features should boost the DAU of the iOS and Android Messenger apps by making users more likely to choose them over the primary Facebook apps.

Facebook for BlackBerry v2.0 should make RIM’s devices more appealing to Facebook users. This is especially important as the company’s stock drops, it lays off employees, and it loses US smartphone operating system market share, dropping from 27% to 20% since the beginning of the year.

The growing usage of Facebook for BlackBerry is one of the few things going right for RIM. Over the last month, the app added roughly one million new daily active users in the last month to reach 25.3 million DAU, and grew two million monthly active users to 38.9 million MAU according to AppData. Still, the Facebook for iPhone and Android apps are growing twice as fast.

The last official update, Facebook for BlackBerry v1.9 from November 2010, added Places and search. Even with v2.0, the app still lacks access to Groups, Check-In Deals, video uploading and some Page admin functionality that Facebook for Android gained earlier this month.

Tested Features Made Official

Now, Facebook for BlackBerry v2.0 users can use Facebook Chat. While using the app they can carry on multiple conversations, and after going online but exiting the app, users receive BlackBerry notifications about incoming Chat messages. This should make it significantly easier to contact friends with BlackBerry devices. Blake Smith of RIM’s Facebook app development team says Chat was heavily requested, and his team had been working on it for over a year to increase stability and reliability of notifications, and reduce buddy list loading time.

RIM has significantly deepened the integration between the app and the native features of its handsets. Users can now re-share stories from the news feed to their BlackBerry Messanger contacts, save phone numbers, email addresses, and BBM PINs they see to the Contacts app, and see Facebook Events to their Calendar app. This should reduce frustration from users wanting to take information they find on Facebook outside of the app.

Access to profiles and Pages has been enhanced to include tabs for wall, info, and photos, and the ability to see mutual friends. Users can now publish a variety of posts including photos and Places check-ins from the news feed, and click a “more” button to add Likes and Comments in-line.

Users now use a navigation grid, similar to that of other popular Facebook smartphone apps, rather than the old navigation bar. Users can view Facebook notifications about Likes and other actions that don’t trigger a push notification to their handset. A “Today” view (the right side of this post’s first image) shows a list of a user’s most recent notifications, friend requests, Messages, and Chats. Users can also use the app over wi-fi, which is especially handy for those travelling without a local data plan.

RIM has done a solid job of shortening the feature gap between its in-house developed app and the Facebook for iPhone and Android apps that are developed by Facebook itself. None of these previously tested features should come as a big surprise, but they certainly improve the quality of the user experience.

Facebook IPO Could Surpass $100B – Facebook may make an IPO in early 2012, according to a report from CNBC. What’s more, they are saying the valuation could be more than $100 billion.

Existing Rules Apply to Political Ads on Facebook - The FEC declined to rule on creating extra regulations for Facebook political ads, reported AllFacebook. This means that ads can be bought and run with the same disclosure that applies to other online ads instead of having to state who paid for an authorized the ads, which could take up much of their character limit.

Facebook Users More Social in Real Life – A Pew Center for Internet & American Life Project study found that Facebook users tend to be more trusting, have more closer friends, are more civically engaged and get more social support from friends in real life.

Most Will Engage With Facebook Political Messages – SocialVibe conducted a study on political engagement advertising, finding among other things, that 94% of users who engaged with political messages ended up watching the entire message, and almost 40% of them shared political ads with Facebook friends.

iOS Integrated With Facebook Before Twitter - TechCrunch wrote an interesting piece this week noting that, before Apple’s iOS deeply integrated with Twitter, it was pretty obvious the company had looked into doing the same thing with Facebook.

Copious Launches Social Marketplace – Copious, co-founded by former Facebook employee Jonathan Ehrlich, launched a social marketplace this week that’s meant to incorporate Facebook’s social data into the business of buying and selling merchandise between individuals. TechCrunch reported that Copious has raised $2 million, in part from Foundation Capital, Google Ventures and BlackBerry Partners Fund.

Iceland Crowdsources its Constitution – The Icelandic government has turned to Facebook, in part, to help draft a new Constitution. Members of the country’s constitutional council are posting drafts of clauses for the constitution, and fans are invited to leave their comments. The council is also streaming its meetings live.

Zuckerberg Talks to Kids – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a graduating eighth grade class in Menlo Park, California. He told them that friendships are what make life meaningful, and gave the students some advice, “‘Everything that’s worth doing is actually pretty hard and takes a lot of work.”

While many of these developers knew they were operating in a risky space, the impending release of an official Facebook for iPad app could significantly curtail traffic to their apps, forcing them to differentiate further or go in a different direction entirely.

Features and a Purposefully Delayed Launch

Those familiar with the matter say the official Facebook for iPad app has been under development for as long as a year and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been directly involved in the design process. The app supposedly includes overhauled versions of Chat and Groups along with other tablet optimizations, and will allow users to shoot and upload video.

Joe Hewitt, who no longer works at Facebook but was the developer of the original Facebook for iPhone app, said that “At some point I came to the conclusion that Facebook on iPhone OS could not truly exceed the website until I could adapt it to a screen size closer to a laptop. It needed to support more than one column of information at a time.” The iPad version might be big enough to support a multi column view, allowing navigation between different areas of the app without returning to an in-app home screen. Chat on Facebook for iPad could also use a multi-pane interface to support simultaneous conversations similar to the Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet app interface shown below.

Techcrunch reports that Facebook may have deliberately delayed launching the app as leverage over Apple, potentially to attain a deeper integration in the new iOS5 mobile operating system. Facebook may not have wanted to give Apple’s device a selling point as the battle for mobile gamers heats up between Facebook’s supposedly planned HTML5 mobile site and iOS. By delaying its release until the HTML5 site was ready, it could push Facebook for iPad users to do their gaming there rather than download apps from Apple’s App Store.

Still, the New York Times noted “Apple also plans to help Facebook promote the new application by featuring it prominently in the App Store, said a person familiar with the plans for the app.”

Doom or More Attention for Third Party Apps?

It’s reasonable to believe most Facebook-using iPad owners would prefer the consistent experience of an official Facebook for iPad app. A launch coinciding with App Store promotion could cause an immediate flocking of third-party app users to the free official app, with more migrating over time as they become aware of a Facebook for iPad’s existence.

Currently, the third-party pack’s front runner in terms of usage is Oecoway’s Friendly for iPad, despite losing roughly 200,000 DAU to drop to just under 600,00o DAU, and slipping from 25th to 59th in the top free iPad apps in the last month. The premium Friendly Plus has been between spots 45 and 30 on the top paid iPad app charts. Note that an Facebook API about two months ago may have caused Friendly to stumble, dropping out of the top of the iOS charts, leading to further decline.

Meanwhile, in the last month Loytr’s MyPad for iPad (formally Facepad) has grown from 254,00 to 428,000 DAU and climbed from 56 to 3 on the top free iPad app chart before settling around the 11th spot. Its premium MyPad+ topped the paid iPad charts last month and is currently in the 6th spot. Other less popular third-party apps include iFace, Ultimate for Facebook, sobees lite for Facebook, and Facely for Facebook HD. All of these stats come from AppData, our tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook and App Store rankings for apps on iOS.

All of these third-party developers rely on upselling users from their free apps to more robust paid versions. This model could be undercut by the presence of a slick, full-featured free official app, wreaking havoc on the livelihood of these developers.

We spoke with Oecoway co-founder Cyril Moutran this morning. He said Facebook app would probable see a lot of early usage, which would “make our position more difficult.”  However, he believes Friendly might even gain users because the official app’s launch will draw the attention to the App Store from iPad owners who were using Facebook’s mobile site. “When they hear about the release, they’ll check the App Store, see there are other apps, and give them a try,” he told us.

That’s an optimistic vision we don’t share. The company’s plan to continue working improving its style options, photo experience, and account switching capabilities doesn’t sound like enough differentiation to convince users to pay when an official free app is available.

Loytr co-founder Cole Ratias said that his company is “excited to have [Facebook] join us in the App Store”, though we don’t quite buy that. “We have plans to evolve with our users as far as social, opposed to specifically Facebook.” This leads us to believe MyPad will be bringing in content from other social platforms, similar to how Flipboard or Pulse does. The company has also hinted at launching a gaming platform which could compete with Facebook’s HTML5 game portal.

Differentiation is Key

We see much more potential in Loytr’s approach of differentiating by building functionality that probably won’t be in the official Facebook for iPad app. Gaming and wider social integrations could mean that MyPad won’t be directly competing with Facebook’s app. Though these independent developers have established a head start, it appears the boom times are over for third-party iPad Facebook app development. We’ll be watching to see who can successfully innovate themselves out of this tight spot, and who will watch their users slip away to Facebook official latecomer.

BlackBerry released the first iteration of its Facebook app for PlayBook at the beginning on May, about two weeks after the launch of the device itself. Some reports and BlackBerry have said sales are healthy, including one estimating 250,000 units sold in the first month. A conflicting report from a source at Best Buy stated that sales had missed goals by 90% and the return rate was high.

Facebook apps have been pegged as big drivers of engagement on mobile devices, so a strong and innovative version for PlayBook could help sales of the device that analysts say is crucial to the future of Blackberry developer Resarch In Motion (RIM).

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook v1.0.5′s ability to upload video to Facebook is unique amongst official Facebook mobile apps. This, along with its multi-pane Chat interface from the initial version, help it stand out from Facebook for Android and iPhone (also used for iPad). The PlayBook’s video recorder shoots in 1080p, so users could easily record and upload a high-def video of a demo at business conference.

Other improvements bring the PlayBook app’s design in line with that of iPhone and Android devices. Pages can be accessed from a button in the Friends section, users can filter search by friends, everyone, or Pages, and a ‘+’ button beside news feed stories allows users to quickly add Likes or comments without leaving the news feed view. Photos can be uploaded to a specific album, and links to settings and the Help Center are readily available.

The most recent version of Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones allows users to choose when they delete Messages whether to delete them from just their device, their Facebook account, or both. The PlayBook update allows for Message deletion, but only from both your device and account at the same time.

V1.0.5 does not resolve the app’s lack of Facebook Groups or Events. With the PlayBook catering to business networkers who often attend business conferences and mixers, the omission of Events is difficult to understand. The feature’s presence in even the earliest iterations of most Facebook mobile apps would suggest it isn’t a difficult technology problem to solve. While unique features may attract attention, a Facebook mobile app needs to cover the basic Facebook experiences, and the PlayBook’s doesn’t yet.