With Cover Buy Twitter Joins Battle Of Android Homescreens

First there was Facebook Home, then Yahoo with Aviate and now Twitter with Cover. Cover is another Android launcher or intelligent homescreen.

Yesterday Cover announced it was being acquired by Twitter. Terms weren’t disclosed. Cover says it will be business as usual, at least for the time being.

Like Aviate, Cover will show different apps in different locations, at different times of day. It’s a personalization tool essentially.

It’s possible that the Cover team will be deployed to create more personalization and contextually relevant experiences on Twitter for mobile devices generally. But it’s also possible that Twitter will seek to grow and utilize Cover and its lockscreen strategy.

As I’ve argued regarding Yahoo-Aviate, if users adopt a proprietary Android homescreen or launcher that company or app can interrupt or disintermediate the primary Google-user relationship on Android devices. It also could become extremely valuable ad space.

All of this assumes significant mainstream usage and adoption.

Facebook Home failed largely because it pushed other apps into the background. Aviate and Cover do the opposite and help direct users to specific apps depending on the time of day and location.