Zuckerberg Tours Samsung: Is a Facebook Phone Coming?

News of Mark Zuckerberg's trip to South Korea is resulting in widespread speculation that Facebook is working with Samsung, the world's largest smartphone-maker, to build a phone specifically tailored for the social network.

Facebook launched in April Home, a software tool geared to make the site's features easier to use and more integrated on mobile, and Samsung was one of the first companies to integrate that feature on devices such as the Galaxy S4. Reports from South Korean news outlets suggest that Zuckerberg's real objective is to ask Samsung to craft a more Facebook-friendly device. That move could in part be precipitated by disappointing sales of the HTC First, the Android-powered Facebook phone made by the Taiwanese company HTC (AT&T has since dropped the unit because of poor sales). But this mix, as well as Samsung's close ties to Google, could make a future partnership with Facebook a murky proposition.