Facebook on Nokia soon

Nokia and Facebook are in talks to deliver Facebook features in advanced Nokia smartphones

Facebook on Nokia mobiles could be a reality soon, if the talks between cellphone maker Nokia and social networking site Facebook are successful. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Nokia and Facebook are in talks to embed some features of the social networking site into Nokia smartphones. If the deal goes through, Facebook could soon be available on many of the new Nokia smartphones with internet connectivity.

Facebook is also in talks with mobile phone manufacturers Motorola and Palm for a similar deal. Facebook already has a deal with Apple’s iPhone, where users of Facebook can access Facebook, post comments and make updates through Apple’s iPhone. It also has a similar arrangement with BlackBerry makers Research in Motion (RIM). Higher versions of BlackBerry can be used to access Facebook features. Facebook’s social networking rival MySpace already has a similar application for the iPhone. MocoSpace was the first to offer social networking on mobile phones.

The details of what features of Facebook will be available on the Nokia phones are not available yet. However, it is likely that Facebook contacts and Nokia phone book contacts are integrated in such a way that a person using a Nokia cellphone can see his contacts from a single phone list and use the same list to make calls, SMS, and post comments on the Facebook page.

Palm, which is soon debuting its latest smartphone Palm Pre, too has a similar feature, where you can contact members from a social networking site as well as in your contact list through a single seamless application.

The talks between Nokia and Facebook have been going on for months. A Facebook spokesman told Wall Street Journal that the company is dedicated to making applications for the mobile platform. Details of Facebook-on-Nokia is are likely to be announced at the Mobile World congress starting in Barcelona next week.

Nokia’s efforts to integrate Facebook into its mobile phones points to the increasing efforts of mobile phone manufactures and gadget makers to converge technologies which fit into the palm and tap the premium end of the market. Mobile phones are increasingly becoming gadgets to find location and navigate, listen to music and video, shoot stills and movies, play games, connect via WiFi & Bluetooth, read news & surf websites, send & receive email and now, network on the web too. Nokia already has a strong web presence due to the Nokia Ovi, Nokia Music Store and the Nokia Maps.

Mobile phone manufacturers are aggressively trying to defend their turf and grow their market share in troubling times by adding extra features without additional cost. As consumers reduce purchases during an economic slowdown, the gadget-makers try to tempt them back to the market by providing new tools and ease of use.

Facebook currently has 150 million active users across the world. The free-to-use website generates revenue from advertising. It is unclear whether ads will be delivered to Nokia phones with Facebook. Facebook founders have earlier said that social networking sites will not generate advertising revenues like search engines do. Facebook has met with controversies on privacy and obscenity issues in several countries. Microsoft, which has a minority stake in the unlisted Facebook is the advertising partner for Facebook, and the ads served on the Facebook pages are all from the Microsoft advertisement library.