I’ve just been reading an interesting comment piece on MobHappy by Russell Buckley, suggesting that if social-networking site Friendster (MySpace kids, ask your dad) wants to recapture its former cool, it should go big on mobile.
And he points out that “there’s still no really great social networking site that successfully combines the best of web and mobile, with any kind of scale.”
It’s a great point, although surely the logical step is for the social networking sites that ARE cool now – MySpace, Bebo – to introduce new mobile tricks, rather than an old dog like Friendster.
For example, MySpace will surely soon be providing this scale by expanding its mobile activities – so far, you’ve had to be on the Helio operator in the US to use MySpace Mobile, and it’s a cut-down version (pictured above).
Trouble is, I’m not sure mobile can meet expectations yet. To take MySpace as an example, I’d want to be able to blog, check my messages and respond to them, see what friends are up to, listen to streaming audio, and generally do ALL of the things I can do on the Web MySpace.
(Although I DON’T want random rubbish unsigned bands sending me texts asking me to add them as a friend, thanks very much.)
Just doing the messaging and profile parts is a good start, but it’s not the whole shebang – especially if I have to pay for it. Maybe I’m being harsh, but there currently seems to be a gap between what’s possible in terms of social networking on mobile, and the expectations of users.
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