Facebook's Mobile Event was a Snooze Fest

Image from Engadget

Most people were thinking that today's Facebook Mobile event would finally reveal the speculated Facebook phone.   Well, it did not.  In fact Mark Zuckerberg flat out said they would not be making a phone.  Instead he said that Facebook was a software company and that they would be concentrating on a software mobile platform.  As you can imagine, this lead to a pretty boring press event.  But there was one thing that caught my interest, hit the read more button below to see what that was.

As part of their mobile software platform, Facebook will now be including a spot for companies and merchants to post deals.  This doesn't sound like a big deal (no pun intended), but the potential for this could be cool.  Facebook described it as allowing a user to search in their proximity for any stores or merchants that are offering deals.  So for example, if you wanted a cup of coffee, you check the deals page, see what local shops are offering a discount and chose the shop that has the best deal.

That's pretty neat, but I could imagine a scenario with a person walking down the street and then having their phone alert them to a store they are passing by that has a great deal on Facebook.  This isn't how the Deals platform is currently setup to work, but it would be cool if they could tap into their location services to make it work.

Facebook kind of dodged answering some questions from the crowd that asked about the above scenario, but they have to be thinking the same thing.  I know there are some potential issues with the Deals platform such as store participation, stores offering lame deals, and the drain always-on location services will have on your phone battery.  But it is defiantly a scenario I imagine when I think about how technology can actually make the future better.  What did you guys think of Facebook's event?