Monday 3 September 2007

Mobile Social Networking: It Has Begun

Although I haven't tried it myself (as the iPhone hasn't been released in Australia yet), I've noticed many positive comments in the blogosphere about the iPhone Facebook Application. For example, today Pronet Advertising stated:

"Not only does it offer a great user experience over a mobile device, it gives new meaning to the term social networking as you can actually use it to network while you are being social - as in out and about, not chained to your computer...Before I might as well have been typing in, sitting at my computer updating my Facebook status everytime I did an update, now with the touch of one button I can type in an update when I'm actually doing it."

I find all the positive commentary intriguing and exciting. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I think it's only a matter of time before we see a mobile based social network hit critical mass and really take-off. You don't need any official figures to know that there are a LOT of mobile phones sold every year, so the potential is staggering.

Together with the success of this iPhone application and the emergence of social networking services such as Twitter, it seems that we might just be seeing the very early stages of the widespread adoption of mobile social networking. If we look at the iPhone alone, there is no doubt that soon there will be millions of them in existence in many different countries, and many iPhone owners will also be members of social networking sites and services such as Facebook.

I don't want to jump the gun here, because predicting the future is always a dicey business. However, I do think it's clear that there is a real demand for mobile networking services and applications. Sure, it might take a while, and there may be setbacks along the way, but being a Twitter addict myself, I've become intensely aware of the value and power of mobile networking. I think it's here to stay, and can only grow stronger. What are your thoughts - agree or disagree?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

John, greetins from Twitter! I myself am getting an iPhone and bringing it to Australia before too long. From what I hear it shouldn't be too hard to mod the sim card etc. to work here.

Definitely hear your points of view and I completely agree. Things like Twitter are bringing us closer together and there is just something cool about my Sony K800i buzzing every so often to tell me one of my friends have updated their Twitter, it will be even cooler when it's my iPhone!

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Hi John!

I couldn't agree more with what you said. So I think that I will keep up the conversation by adding to this comment a post on my blog. Nice post!

Andrea

Unknown said...

Cheers to the content here & great to know that finally its happening that mobile servicer's are realizing the need of individual user's with concern to "MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING" here is something what I came across & the most catchy feature was that we would be able to access to these networking sites on mobile without GPRS,EDGE or internet,this is were it tells us in detail about it www.modazzle.com?channel=CM&camp=mobilenet8