Facebook Home's road to success will be a marathon, not a sprint

Facebook Home
Facebook thinks slow and steady will win the social race

Facebook may be one of the most dominant social networks of all time, but the company has struggled to find its footing beyond the confines of the world wide web.

With Facebook Home, Zuckerberg and crew seemed poised to finally make a big splash on smartphones that could expand the network's outreach on mobile devices.

It's strange to think of Facebook Home having 1 million users being a bit of a disappointment, but when you consider more than 1 billion members utilize Facebook globally, the disparity is hard to ignore.

That doesn't seem to bother the executives at the social network though, as they see the adoption and growth of Facebook Home as a long haul effort.

Homeward bound

Speaking at the D: All Things D conference on Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talked a bit about the network's vision for Home.

"I think it will be a long road. [The smartphone is] an incredibly powerful device and social device," Sandberg said.

"We believe that the phone will get re-organized around people - Home is the first iteration of that."

Home hasn't exactly set the world on fire, and even though its available on a myriad of Android devices like the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and the dismally received (at least in retail) HTC First.

Even those who have been brave enough to make the jump to Home have a fair share of complaints, but Sandberg promised those voices are being heard.

"We consider [Home] a v.1, a very early version," Sandberg said. "We would love if we could put out a v.1 version and get everything right."

Home is supposed to be updated monthly, and time will tell if Sandberg and the rest of the Facebook team are right in believing Home has what it takes to survive amidst the rapidly changing smartphone landscape.

Via AllThingsD