Social Networks and Mobile

I've been interested in how social networks will impact mobile and vice versa for a while, and in the last few weeks, I've had a little more time to spend playing the LinkedIns, Facebooks and Twitters of the world. We have had a mobile game community product for a while at some of our carrier customers and have done a lot of research into how we take that to the next level.

So the question becomes how will mobile take communities to the next level?

The device is in your pocket.... Twitter and Facebook have lovely iPhone interfaces for the Safari browser, and I assume that there will be applications for this distributed through the Application store in June, but I think a consolidated application that brings together all YOUR communities is the way to go. That way I can look at all the things that matter to me, like Twitter, Facebook, Playstation Game community and, as Jeremy Clarkson so wonderfully called it, MyFace.

I think Twitter is the most interesting of the communities at the moment, and I think when devices get GPS, having your location when you "twit" associated with the post will have great benefits.  For example, I post a "twit" when I arrive in Seattle, and any followers on Twitter in the area know I'm there without me having send out 1206 emails telling people I'm there.  Tomi Ahonen talks more about this on his blog "Communities Dominate Brands" (always a good read, plus he's a big F1 fan too)

As the devices get more advanced (a combination of the new N95 from Nokia and the iPhone would be mahvellous...), you could have photos uploaded, GPS integration, even put your travels into Google Maps... upload those to your blog etc...  

The question for the carriers is how can they take all that user generated content and make additional revenues from it around advertising and cross selling content.  An interesting problem to solve...

Talk about an opposite weekend

A few weekends ago, I was on a high after Wales won the Grand Slam, but this weekend brought me firmly down to earth.  My Carolina Hurricanes lost to Florida in the hockey, and we knocked out of the playoffs, and the North Carolina Tarheel basketball team got soundly thumped by Kansas in the Final Four to mean they got eliminated too..

So, to make me feel better, I decided that some retail therapy was in order and I went to the local mall and bought myself a Dualit Chrome 2 slice toaster.  It looks pretty good in the kitchen.

I'll get pictures up on the house blog as soon as I do some cleaning up...

On the plus side, Apple has provided an update to the Apple TV and it is now downloading at about 10 times the speed.  Its a much better experience.  HD trailers are coming in very nicely.

"In Bruges" looks hilarious.  If anyone has seen it, let me know