Facebook has always centered their mobile strategy around HTML5 over native apps. However, Mark Zukerberg recently admitted on TechCrunch Disrupt that the company’s biggest mistake to date was to focus only HTML5 and not native.

In the TechCrunch Disrupt video, Mark Zuckerberg says:

“I think that the biggest mistake we’ve made as a company is betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native. Because it just wasn’t there. It’s not that HTML5 is bad, I’m actually, I’m long term really excited about it…

…Then we had to start over and start re-writing everything to be native. [It] brings us to where we are now. We’ve burnt two years. It’s really painful, probably we will look back on that as being one of the biggest mistakes if not the biggest strategic mistake that we’ve made… but we’re coming out of that now.”

And indeed Facebook is coming out of that now. Facebook’s iOS app update was a very positive company advancement, and the app has been well received. In fact, Zuckerberg says in the video that people are consuming twice as many feed stories since the update to the new iOS app.

When a company like Facebook admits that a hard focus on HTML5 is a mistake – and that mobile strategies should include native – it says a lot about the mobile market, and where mobile developers should put their focus. Do you think Facebook’s HTML5 focus was a mistake – or do think the web is where the company’s strategy belongs? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

View the video below: