The Future of Social Networking now goes Truly Mobile
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TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington wrote a great article last week about the future of social networking, which is now moving to the mobile. We have seen how online social networks such as Orkut and Facebook have mobile versions that are successful to a certain extent. Orkut recently launched a mobile version of its network, something that Facebook had done a while back so Orkut still has some catching up to do.
Nevertheless, I’ve seen only a few people actually use their mobile phones to access Facebook and truly utilize the power of social networking. It’s a no brainer to figure out that if you want to network on the mobile – you must involve the location-based element so as to drive interactivity among users. Mobile social networking, I strongly believe – bridges the gap (or atleast has the ability to do so) between social networking through a device and social networking on an individual level. It’s an ‘in between’ if you get what I’m saying.
A mobile social network should also enable users to participate with respect to their current state of mind. Think of it this way – if you’re in a night club and you feel the sudden need to find a business partner then you should be able to network with people who have set their status as ‘looking to network’ or something of that sort. Conversely you might want to find a friend in a business conference. Filters is what I am talking about.
Micheal Arrington in his post talks about how he saw the future of mobile social networking. He saw a demo of an upcoming ‘iPhone only’ social network, which is an outcome of the recently released SDK for developers. As Arrington says, iPhone users are the perfect place to start such a network – they are elitists, passionate about their phones, and enjoy the exclusivity of something that’s iPhone only.
The network (which is actually an ‘application’) basically allows you to go to any location, discover iPhone users who have installed the application. For example, you can walk into a cricket stadium to watch an IPL match (say Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians) turn on ‘discoverable’ and get the first name and picture of every person in the crowd who has an iPhone and the application. Of course a user can install screens as well wherein he or she can choose not to view certain kind of people from certain age groups.
This is brilliant because it’s an actual manifestation of Location Based Services. Moreover once the friendship with people develops, you can actually track where your friends are.
According to TechCrunch the startup did not wish to reveal itself as of now but will do so soon. The company who is making this application also thinks that it has figured out a way to make the application run in the background while using other iPhone features (currently you can’t run iPhone applications along with using other features such as Text Messaging, Safari and so on).
It’s an extremely interesting concept, which is very well executed by the looks of it. The picture is courtesy of TechCrunch who got it off Media Spin.
My friend made an interesting observation about such a network though – “everything is becoming like The Truman Show”.
Just as another tiny piece of information for all of you interested in the mobile space in India. Our sister concern WATConsult is currently consulting a couple of really interesting mobile applications – 1 is related to Mobile Social Networking and the other is related to music distribution through mobiles. Both are extremely interesting and if you’d like to have a look/ invest/ be a part of the marketing team or anything of that sort, do feel free to contact us.
Now for the ‘iPhone network’
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Loved the idea.
Hope to see them soon.
This is the natural next step for the social networks.
Nice post, Harshil.
Mobile advertising is a good gage to watch for the health of mobile social networks. Right now there a lot of mobile social networks trying to prove their business model based on ad sales. Crush or flush has added a new revenue model for mobile social networks that looks very promising. See the article posted at http://www.hiloa.com.