What could be behind Facebook’s mystery press invite?

Well now, 2013’s already started and the first big mystery press invite has already arrived, courtesy of Facebook.

The social networking titan has invited members of the press to an event at its Menlo Park campus next week, giving no hint of what the event might be about.

There is speculation that the company could finally be announcing plans to launch the much-rumored Facebook phone. There are a couple of reasons that kind of speculation stinks worse than dirty gym bag left in a car over the summer.

First off, Mark Zuckerberg himself has quashed any notions that such a device is in the works. In September last year, he said “it’s always been the wrong strategy for us.”

In fact, he thinks it would make no sense for the social network to build a phone. “Let’s say we build a phone,” he said. “We’re not, but if we did, we could maybe get 10 to 20 million people to use it… It doesn’t move the needle for us.” It’s unlikely that much has changed since then.

Second, even if the social network had changed its mind on hardware, we would have heard of it by now. Keeping hardware a secret is stupidly difficult these days. Just ask Apple. One of the reasons the iPhone 5 launch was such an anti-climax was because we pretty much knew everything about it before Tim Cook even took to the stage. If all of Apple’s billions couldn’t keep a phone secret, what chance would Facebook have?

A more likely option is that it’ll be unveiling something to with the site. Perhaps a redesign related to the single column Timeline layout recently spotted in the wild.