14 DAY TRIAL // Perhaps tired of everyone talking about Google+, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, during a visit at Facebook's Seattle headquarters, that something "awesome" will be launched next week.
He didn't reveal any details on what that "awesome" something will be, so journalists and bloggers are having a field day trying to figure out what's coming.
The most likely scenario is a new photo-sharing mobile app or something having to do with mobile anyway.
But other possibilities thrown out there include an iPad app and even something having to do with Facebook's new media ambitions with music, TV and so on.
Zuckerberg was visiting Facebook's new Seattle office, unveiled in March this year, which now employs about 40 people. It's this office that built the new product or feature Zuckerberg was announcing.
Apparently, the Seattle office is focused on mobile applications and the mobile space in general, so the new product will probably be a new mobile feature or app.
Since we already know that Facebook has been working on a dedicated photo-sharing app, to fight with the Instagrams of the world, this seems like an obvious scenario.
However, the new tool, if indeed it has to do with mobile photos, will likely be built into the current Facebook app, for convenience. Don't discount something web-based related to photos either.
But Facebook has also been building an iPad app. It's pretty much a given that such an app is coming, since it's been one of the big missing pieces for Facebook.
With no official Facebook app, third-party clients, even paid ones, are the top downloaded iPad apps. Users had the option of visiting the mobile version of the website, but it isn't a complete replacement for a native app.
Some tension between Facebook and Apple as well as the social network's allegiance to HTML5 and the web have kept it from releasing an iPad app so far, but this won't be for very much longer.