Social Networks: The Mobile Way

Social networks are sprouting these days like wild mushrooms. Many of these new online communities cater to niche interests ranging from obscure political candidates to independent films.

Social networking sites allow users to create online profiles and build personal networks that connect them to other users. In the past five years, social networks have skyrocketed from an uncommon activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of users. More than half (55%) of all online American youths between the ages of 12 and 17 use online social networking sites, according to a new national survey.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that people are starting to create a new brand for themselves. I recently read that parents of the future need to visit their kids' social sites to know more about what their sons and daughters are thinking and doing. But social networking is hardly relegated to common interests and curious parents; employers and recruiters seem to take a look at online profiles of prospects to know more on the candidates.

Though the reasons are people-focused, the main technological reasons for this activity are the availability of network connectivity and bandwidth. With the wireless networks starting to offer higher bandwidths and always-on connections, social networking is making its way into the mobile world. Here are some of the cool applications seen in this area.

  • Motorola recently showcased a device at the Symbian SmartPhone Show in London that could shoot a video or pictures, and seamlessly allow users to edit and upload them to social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut, or to their personal blogs.
  • Myspace mobile has a JavaME application that provides a full mobile implementation of the online MySpace experience. This application allows users to access their MySpace pages on the go, read and post blogs, view and edit profiles, add comments and friends, view groups and photos, access calendars, read and send email, and get mobile alerts.

Innovation is the marriage of technologies, and these kinds of social networking applications are also making mobile application developers think of cool new thin client server applications that make use of the bandwidth and connectivity. Some innovative examples include:

  • Loopt lets users know where your friends are by automatically updating maps on the mobile handset. It even allows users to send messages to nearby friends or receive automatic alerts when they're nearby so that you never miss an opportunity to meet. It also lets users' journal your life so that your friends can see what you're up to.
  • Some applications that will be available that provides information on when/where the pictures were shot, and that can be over-lay on maps on the social networking sites.

Judging from the earlier successes of plain old social networking, marketing the mobile message may not be a very tough sell at all. Innovations are left to the developer community to come up with compelling and useable solutions.

– Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola Technology Evangelist

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