Insight Community

I think OpenSocial API's will end up dominating, but for the time being I'd like to see
FriendFeed become popular. It promises to be the "next" Twitter, it mashes several
popular sites and is very user-friendly and nicely configurable.

Next I'd like to see Twitter become popular too; Bearing in mind that folks on the go
aren't very likely to "thumb out" long posts or upload stuff but are likely to take
small sips of social networking - little glimpses of what their peer_(&)_friend network
members are up to, at a glance.

As to Bluedating, it became wildly popular in Japan, it's country of origin. I think it will
most definitely take off, however depending upon how it's promoted to the GP, it
may be a flash-in-the-pan. I think one of it's major drawbacks is (unfortunately) its
potential for mis-use by child predators but I believe in metropolitan areas it may become
quite handy for young professionals with very busy lives who've had their fill of "Matching"
websites laden with misreprentations and mis-matches.

This is indeed a big issue. In fact, it's just about the Holy Grail of mobile communications. Our lives, on both desktop and mobile, are so fragmented. What's needed is a way of integrating (in approximate order of importance):

1. Contacts
2. Chat
3. Media
4. Blog feeds
5. Presence (and Calendar)

in a sensible way. But, like Facebook, it needs to reach a certain critical mass before it'll take off properly.

In fact, it's tempting to quote the mobile sites of sites like Facebook (m.facebook.com) as the most popular mobile social network. But these are hosted by a web browser, have limited (or no) syncing to phone native Contacts and Calendar, and have no concept of presence (i.e. where in the world you are).

Think of what's needed (the five points above). Then think of who is the biggest Internet and mobile company in the world. Google. And then remind yourself that Google bought a little Finnish company called Jaiku last year. Jaiku was an S60-native (OK, so not every phone in the world runs S60, but it's a heck of a good start) social network client, pulling together contacts, chat, feeds and presence (in every sense). But it was a tiny company crying out for big boy attention.

And then Google bought it.

Not quite job done though, since Google have either been planning Jaiku v2 or using the expertise from the Jaiku engineers to further their mobile plans using other Google applications. And, despite Google's inexplicable six month's gestation of their acquisition, Jaiku remains by far the closest thing in the mobile world to the aforementioned 'Holy Grail'.

So we have a killer (but fairly small) mobile social app, plus the largest Internet company in the world - what else is needed? Heard of Open Social? It's Google's next generation attempt to solve the silly fragmented situation in the online world. We're talking one login, one set of contacts, one set of feeds, and so on.

I believe that we're within six months of all this coming together - I predict both S60 and Java clients released by Google for general download and for inclusion in phone firmware builds. The solution name? Google Friends? Maybe. It will encompass all of Jaiku's current functionality, while being easier to use, Open Social-compatible, linking in and from every other major social source using RSS technology AND it will be backed by the 800lb gorilla in the Internet room, backed with the might of Google.

Google Friends will, of course, be copied by Microhoo! (or whatever they evolve into), but I won't care. My data, my friends, my life, will all be represented in 'the cloud', and tied together in a meaningful way so that I can see everything at a glance. On my desktop computer AND on my mobile phone.

And that's pretty cool. 

myspace, facebook, flickr, pandora, and google reader would be my top 5 social networking functions on a phone.  Myspace and Facebook are so huge now that to pretend that people wouldn't use them on a phone is ridiculous.  People are going out of their way to log onto these through their phone's browsers, so if the phone had some streamlined "mobile exclusive" interfaces, that would definitely prove beneficial for heavy myspace/facebook users. 

 Likewise, flickr really needs to have one-step uploads from the phone to the flickr site aside from emails, like a direct upload interface.  Furthermore, if I could dump all the pics on my phone to flickr in one shot, and also delete them on confirmation that they are on flickr, that would be even better.  I don't even want to think about if I have to put a picture up.. it should just go up marked "private" and let me deal with it from there.

 Pandora - the bandwidth would be very high, but a lot of people would use pandora on their phones to stream music versus paying for music.  Inevitably, services like pandora's free service will cause all but the two premium music subscription services (i.e. satellite radio or an iTunes subscription) to go away. 

Google reader - being able to surf directly to the most important stories without having to email links to everyone will become a much bigger deal over time, and I often don't want to surf through all my own reader links.  Therefore, to have feeds of my friends' links on my mobile would save me from having to subscribe to predefined news services, etc. 

Social Networking on a mobile device has challenges. Screen size, conection speed, proagation delays and bad keyboards are all issues from a user side. Other than just charging for the service, how do you monetize these services. 

Many sites that want to be mobile accessible are doing so. Blogging/messages/imaging on something as small as 160x160 pixels is interesting. posting amessage directly on a site is fast. posting a message from a phone is slow. Typing ius slow and transmission is slow. So a challenge is setting sservices so that delay in the minute rane has to be acceptible.

For those like be who requires a flip phone tat easily fits in my pocket, the keyboard and small screen size are an issue. A 140 character twitter is multiple screens.

My five social networking function for mobile devices are:

• Twitter like service. Both global and to a specific interest group.
• Photo blogging.
• IM
• blu-meetup
• rss reader

Where do businesses make money on these services?  Inject advertising? Subscription? Drive you to a desktop where there is advertising?  Text services lend themselves to advertising link embedded into the message stream. 

Blu-meetup will proably be a subscription service from dating sites. the reason is that you have to push the advertisment before the ID is presented. But with a 30 foot radius for bluetooth, the person can be out of  visual range by the time the time the advert is skipped.

Both a general post to a community like twitter or through a specific interest group would be great. Although I'd want twitters from friends, not neccessarily the world. Scobleizer has 17,000 people he follows would require a truly unlimited data an messaging plan to handle that. I'd be up for joining the "Fry's cool deal group". As people go to fry's, they send text or photo on a product. Let the messages fly.

Private twitter like groups where geeks at a tradeshow or Fry's, or teen age girls at the mall can easily send SMS/photo/video to a preset group of people. With small screen, simple images and text have to be the limit. At this level, it is just group IM with pictures. But if it were possible for these groups to be published and subscribed to, that would be good social networking.

Sending out a photo or video from the phone and passing comments and other related photos would be interesting.  this would be a Flickr like mobile service.

IM is what I consider the original social network product. Even on mainframes, there were talk apps used mostly to get someone in operations ASAP. I know few people that don't have at least on IM client open on a desktop. Or people who use SMS as you use IM on the desktop. It is basic and truly ubiquitous.

Blu-meeting/bludating is something to explore. Having your phone pop a message when someone is close, within 30 feet, at some moment could be interesting. It makes connecting with people belonging to the same social groups more serindipitous. The ultimate FriendFinder. Although sitting in church and have photo's of you in your leather outfit popup could be embassassing. 

Using RSS to follow blogs or getting the updates from the non-mobile social networks you belong to would useful. Some of us do not want to be out of touch with those feeds. Granted, most of us receive too much data already. 

 As data plans become cheaper, phone screens larger and devices become more like UMPCs, the use of social networking facilities will become more widespread.

&n bsp;

Social networking sites continue to grow as top destinations on the web. Three out of the top five most visited sites on the Internet are social networking sites: MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook, according to Alexa. Interest in these sites is typically driven by a desire to stay connected with existing contacts and expand social networks.

Just as social networking sites continue to grow in popularity, demand for access to those sites on mobile devices will continue to grow as users manage more of their lives online. That in mind, mobile social networking apps may taking the shape of enhancements for portals to existing sites like Facebook, will be the most popular.

So what compels users to choose one mobile social network over another, and where do additional opportunities for mobile social networking apps exist?

Well-organized contact lists that allow users to quickly separate work contacts from social contacts, and search functionality to find any given snippet of contact information instantly.

Entertainment. Does the site allow for playful or serious interactions between users in a fun and effective way? If not, a mobile social networking app could fill in the gap.

Expanding networks is a key activity for these users, and finding others with similar interests or goals is usually the first step.

Mobile syncing would empower users to access social networking sites while offline. An application that allowed caching and syncing at a later time would provide immense value.

Images, video and text are the primary ways users communicate online, so an application that simplified any of those functions would provide efficiency gains on a daily basis.

Popular local events and destinations help users meet in person, and drawing that information into a social network helps bridge the gap between virtual and real life. After users arrive at a local event, connecting them via Bluetooth would be icing on the cake. For people who don't even know each other yet, bluedating -- matching up users with similar interests when they're within about 10 meters of each other -- is another niche market that could grow. The challenge bluedating faces is a tendency for social networking users to use distance as a convenient and polite reason to reject undesirable new suitors.

Protecting privacy is critical to maintaining trust with users, and coaching them on how much information to make public could be another application opportunity.

Circumspect advertising will present relevant ads to interested users, bring in more income, and prevent frustration by users looking to access their content more quickly-- especially on a mobile device where screen real estate is at a premium. Mobile social networking apps that drive appropriate placement of ads will drive user satisfaction and profit.

Note, a "Mobile Social Networks" value map should appear below. If it doesn't, you may need to refresh the page need and click Yes to the display secure and nonsecure items dialog box.

It's an exciting time. T-Mobile's "Fave 5" campaign proved cell phone companies are finally getting serious about social networking. Cell phones have reached a critical mass, and in the next stage they'll provide a platform for some unbelievably cool networking applications.

But there's already some clear signs about where we're at — and what to expect in the future.

• Helio's "Buddy Beacon" set the standard for mobile social networking. It actually tells you where your social network is — using a map! Cell phones have a lot of position-based information that isn't being fully utilized. Once developers unlock its potential, there should be a huge rise in mobile social networking.


• The University of Southern California tried a fasincating experiment. Their information technology program created a mobile "scavenger hunt," texting once-a-week questions that could only be answered by exploring the campus. Dozens of students flocked to the game, proving a secret truth about social networks. In a lot of cases, their only real use it they're fun!


• "Bluedating" only really works for the young and adventurous. People have a natural uneasiness about interacting with strangers, and that doesn't change just because they both have cell phones! But instead the killer app will probably be something like "blueshopping" — helpful alerts when you're within twenty feet of your favorite food!


• I'm actually surprised no one has created a mobile "coupon book" to distribute to shoppers at a mall. Just beam over the coupons, and let shoppers scroll through special "digital bargains" being offered by nearby merchants! Early market tests proved this was popular with cell phone owners — and with merchants!


• People really only want to socialize with friends they already have. For example, Twitter has become phenomenally popular just by connecting friends together with very simple, short-form "status updates." I predict its popularity will lead to expanded capabilities. In the future, Twitter users will swap entire portfolios of their baby photos, wedding photos, or snapshots from their recent vacations!


• I'd love a social networking app that could keep track of everyone at a conference — giving attendees a digital "year book" matching names to faces, along with contact information, their company affiliation, and what state their from! Something like that could be even more popular at Spring Break or other big events. Imagine having "before" and "after" pictures available for a class reuion!


• The internet has proven that a million videographers will eventually create a viral masterpiece. Imagine what would happen if everyone could share their cellphone videos in real-time at sporting events. An application could collect and share the most recent videos taken within your proximity — and allow the crowd to vote the best videos to the top. Did the ref make a bad call?
  
  Someday 500 cellphone videos may hold the answer...