Thoughts about Facebook Portal (and Smart Displays in general)

The first Facebook product that isn’t blue, right?

First things first: Portal is the perfect name for a Smart Display.

But is there even one review that doesn't focus on the privacy implications? I get it, Facebook is todays scapegoat for everything bad about the Valley, but can we please talk about product? Compared to others, Facebook at least made it easy to create some kind of private space.

Having said that, I wonder why

• They haven’t foreseen this backslash and postponed the launch (it’s a device that isn’t that time-critical).
• They used the Facebook brand. (It wouldn’t be the first conglomerate that uses brands not as they fit the use case, but as they fit the CEOs ego.)

If you tell me you can do this with your smartphone you are missing the point. You could…