I came across a very interesting article yesterday that will have a large impact on the world of mobile and social media. This is particularly important to me because I am one of those people that will not leave home without my cell phone and doesn’t go a day without checking my Facebook or MySpace. I know that social networks are becoming more user friendly all the time. I think back to the days before mini-feeds on Facebook and before Twitter even existed. In general, these sites have come a long way in a short period of time. The part I was not expecting was for the sites to go mobile.
I am a step behind in the mobile evolution and have yet to get myself an iPhone or Blackberry. However, the ability to have the internet anywhere on your mobile has convinced me to look into them. Something that sparks my interest even more about these phones is the upcoming applications in social media. There has not been an official announcement yet, but this will be coming and will transform mobile and social networking for the future years to come. The iPhone will most likely be the first to start the application.
I am talking about the ability to walk into a bar and be able to pull up profiles of people around you. It will now be simple to find out their name, birthday and even martial status. Imagine the ability to check profiles before you walk into a business meeting. Another feature that will be innovative to social networking will be the capability to know where your friends are around you through GPS or triangulation. In my opinion, I think this will be great to use on a social level, but I am not sure I would want to use this on a professional level. I am not sure if the world is ready to have information about you available by just walking by someone. Some enjoy the ability to know the whereabouts of friends anytime anywhere, however, some don’t want people to have that ability. Luckily, there would be privacy settings and filters on the application that you can customize to fit your needs.
This possibility goes hand in hand with a new development that has recently come about in the social media world. The announcement of Data Portability and the cooperation of sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Digg will bring about a big change in these sites on its own. Data Portability gives users the right to move their profile information to different sites. For instance, users will have one Universal Profile. In my opinion, this will be great for usability. No one wants to have to make a profile for themselves 5 times just so they can sign up for a new site. This might increase the number of users that new social media sites have as well. The downside of this is the fact that some users don’t want to have one profile for all of their accounts. You might have a Facebook and Twitter account that is more fit for your professional lifestyle but a MySpace page that is fit for interacting with friends. I am very interested to see how Data Portability will play out among the user’s of all the sites.
Overall, it looks like social media will be going through some slight changes, mostly pertaining to sites that involve profiles. However, we all knew that changes like these would happen and to be honest, I believe this is only the beginning.
Sites:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/23/will-there-be-an-iphone-only-social-network/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/09/i-saw-the-future-of-social-networking-the-other-day/
http://mashable.com/2008/05/09/facebook-connect/
