The social network that has a population larger than India (over 800 million users) wants to enter automobiles. Mercedes-Benz USA hopes to make this possible, announcing plans to integrate Facebook (News - Alert) in its cars.

The automotive version of the Facebook service will be integrated into the vehicle’s telematics system. Its first demo version will be shown at the CES (News - Alert) this week. If you get a “Facebook car,” you will quickly realize that it’s nothing like the Facebook you access on your PC or your phone. This version of Facebook is a barer edition with a more minimalized library of features catering to drivers, particularly putting emphasis on locations of friends and establishments.

Dan Rose, Facebook’s VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing says that the Mercedes implementation of Facebook will demonstrate the social network’s quick expansion into anything that has a screen and an Internet connection.

“Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that,” said Rose. “One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people.”

We certainly hope that this feature will not make stalkers’ jobs easier.

Of course, Facebook and auto manufacturers have to keep safety in mind, especially when everyone’s growing weary of distracted drivers with mobile applications installed in their cars. Robert Policano, production manager for Telematics Services at Mercedes, insists that the service isn’t more distracting than a radio or navigation system. Facebook interactions that require text input are disabled while the car is moving.

The application instead has many pre-written messages that drivers can put up on Facebook with very quick motion, such as the tap of a screen or the twist of a knob. If you enter a destination on the nav system, you can opt to automatically publish an update to your FB status that says you’re on the way there, together with an ETA that’s calculated based on traffic volume on that time of day.

Note that Mercedes’ Facebook implementation will not support third-party applications such as FarmVille by Zynga (News - Alert) and other games hosted on the social network.

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