2007 – the year of mobile social networking?
Vecosys:2007 – the year of mobile social networking?:
I must admit, I certainly hope so… moreso, now that I’ve hitched my metaphorical wagon to Jaiku.
I think, like IM, back in the day, there’ll be a flood of mobile applications that all do similar things, all with their own target demographics. The interesting thing to watch will be who gets funded, who gets users, and who gets gone.
I know where my bets are.
Of course, today’s introduction of the iPhone will impact on the market for mobile social networks quite hugely. I won’t be getting one personally – for one thing, it’s a version 1 apple product, which shouts ‘avoid!’ to me. For another, I’ve got a highish end Nokia winging it’s way to me from Finland. Finally, of course, is the stinking reality that it won’t be out in this part of the world until 2008 at the earliest.
Devices like the iPhone mean that any social network is potentially a mobile social network. Where those that are more dedicated to the mobile market will (I hope) have the edge, is in being able to leverage mobile-specific information – with defined ‘zones’ known to the device (based on which cell tower you’re talking to), with the ability to detect friend-proximity in meat-space. Moving that out further into virtual spaces (WoW, or Second Life) adds another dimension, and I think that’s something we’ll start to see soon, with the open sourcing of the Second Life client, and Shawn Fanning’s new (pending?) Social Network, which will have hooks into Warcraft.
More than anything, I’d like to see these various networks look for ways of working together. 100% market share is never going to be a viable option in this market place, and social networks, like other networks, are at their most useful when they link up. The challenge will be how to do that, while retaining unique advantages.
What I’d prefer to not see, is a proliferation of non-compatible, non-interacting social network, much like we have now, with IM networks, where I have a third party multi-network IM client (Adium) for the 5 or so different IM accounts I have. That’s just ugliness.
Looks like an interesting year ahead.
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