Facebook today launched its first hardware products, the Portal and Portal+.
Judging from the response on Twitter, the Portal is dead on arrival.
In fairness, the timing isnt great.
Facebook is currently dealing with a massive security breach, and public trust in the company is at rock-bottom.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
That said, Im not sure you’re able to write off the Portal just yet.
Theres also the argument that the perspective of the Twitter chattering classes doesnt directly compare to public sentiment.
In April this year, the company reached a milestone of 2.2 billion users.
It accomplished this despite Prism.
Despite the Fake News scandal of the 2016 election.
It shrugged off that.
This Teflon quality isnt unique to Facebook but is instead something common across most big tech companies.
During Q1 2018,Amazon sold 2.5 million Echo smart speakers.
Will the Facebook Portal follow in Amazons footsteps?
I dont think so, and thats because Facebook can take advantage of the online grid effect.
The Amazon Echo Show lets users call landlines and mobiles, as well as other Alexa users.
Facebook Portal, on the other hand, allows people to call 2.2 billion Facebook Messenger users.
In 2017, Facebook Messenger facilitatedan astonishing 17billionvoice conversations, essentially doubling its numbers from the previous year.
As a bonus, its a whole $30 cheaper than the Amazon Echo Show.
Oh, and it packs Alexa support, so users arent missing out on any voice assistant functionality.
Video-conferencing gear is expensive.
At $200, the Facebook Portal isnt.
Plus, it does a lot of stuff that other devices dont like AI-powered background noise elimination.
Facebook could use the Portal as an effort to springboard uptake of its collaborative software tools.
This approach would give it a serious competitive advantage over its biggest rival, Slack.
Facebook only announced the Portal a few hours ago.
That said, if Facebook delivers on what its promised, were in for a treat.
The Portal+, with its massive pivoting display, looks especially gorgeous.
Of course, only time will tell if the Facebook Portal is a success.
