Facebook's January 15 event: What surprises lie ahead?

As Facebook gears up for its special event in Menlo Park later today, we take a look at the possible announcements.

                                 

So Facebook is ready to show off something new at its event later today, with invitations being sent out to journalists inviting them to the Menlo Park Headquarter for the Social Networking site. With the announcement of “something new” so close, we can’t help but wonder what Zuckerberg and Co. have in store.

The first thing that pops into mind is the possibility of a Facebook phone. Even though Mark Zuckerberg has vehemently denied Facebook’s intentions of creating a phone under its brand name, the rumours of such a device just refuse to die away. The "Come and see what we're building," tagline in the invitation doesn’t help the case. Many analysts have stated that Facebook’s venture into the hardware business of phones would not bode well for the company. Zuckerberg himself noted that even if every single one of the 10 million Facebook users bought the “Facebook Phone,” the revenue from the sales would barely have an impact on Facebook’s overall earnings.

The second and rather likely suspect is the Messenger app for the iPad. Facebook has been taking the mobility game rather seriously. With the iPhone and Android apps for Facebook getting some serious functionality and performance boost. The Messages app for the iPhone has been in the App Store for a while, but the iPad hasn’t yet received an official version. It is possible that tonight’s announcement would include an official Messenger app for the iPad, with Retina Display support of course.

The third possible announcement could include Facebook’s foray into the search business, as Zuckerberg said that “Facebook gets about a billion queries a day, and we aren’t even trying.” He has also been quite vocal about his annoyance with Google entering the social networking business. Given the events, it wouldn’t be surprising it Facebook was readying to reveal some kind of search engine.

Facebook is known to do exciting things at their events, with the last event being where Facebook announced Timeline. Could this event also include something as “ground-breaking?”

We shall find out in a few hours, so stay tuned!