Social networking is a big thing on the normal web and people like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr and the like are rarely out of the news.
On mobile, despite it being a social technology by design, social networking is still in its infancy, but it is getting better. Here are some of the more interesting social news we featured this year.
1. Nokia’s MOSH
Nokia’s internally developed MObile SHaring site (MOSH – gettit?!?) has slowly been going through the gears this year with a public beta of the service.
Its aim is to connect mobile users through both their mobiles AND their PCs to share a wide variety of content such as videos, pics, apps, games and documents (even the complete works of Shakespeare!).
It might not have the branding of Facebook or MySpace but now it’s been included in Nokia’s Ovi suite of mobile-internet apps, expect it to start taking off in 2008. Motorola was obviously so impressed it bought a rival service from Australia called TileFile.
2. Bango Button
Mobile payments provider Bango has been around almost as long as someone first thought of paying for things on your mobile. This year it moved into mobile payments on social networking sites with its “Get On My Mobile” Bango Button.
This lets anyone using a social website, media sharing site, forum or blog to make their content available to mobiles with one click. When users click on the button, they will get a URL which they enter into their mobile’s browser. If you want to make money, you can charge for downloading this content.
It’s designed for sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Blogger, Orkut and WordPress.
3. Facebook on iPhone
The iPhone is undoubtedly one of the most user-friendly devices around and considering most ‘cool’ people who have bought one are undoubtedly on Facebook, it’s a good job Facebook has been optimised for iPhones.
Unlike most websites, which haven’t yet realised they should optimise their sites with iPhone-specific versions, Facebook apparently already has.
When our writer Stuart Dredge logged onto Facebook from his iPhone he was pleasantly surprised to see that it automatically detected his iPhone and rerouted him to http://iphone.facebook.com. His verdict: “It’s fantastic.”
4. Facebook loses, Itsmy.com wins
Talking of Facebook, last month the UK/German mobile social network Itsmy.com claimed it was signing up thousands of users because they couldn’t Facebook at work.
Apparently, because people aren’t allowed to spend all their time on social networking sites like Facebook (wonder why?), they’re now adopting mobile social networking sites so they look like they’re writing important texts, when in actual fact they’re just counting how many ‘friends’ they’ve got.
5. Vodafone InsideOut
Online virtual world Second Life is supposed to be this brave new dawn of social networking for people who can’t do it in real life. Unfortunately we still don’t know any ‘Second Lifers’ in the offline world, but they must be out there.
Anyway, this year Vodafone launched its InsideOut service, letting people in the real world call or text someone inside the ‘game’ who’s using a virtual mobile.
You can just imagine it, can’t you? Some real hardnut showing off to some hot chicks in Second Life getting his image destroyed by his mum calling his mobile to let him know his dinner’s ready!
Be sure to check back on Monday December 31 to see more of our Top Picks of 2007:
Messaging services
Wi-Fi/VoIP services
Interesting how the coolest things on mobile are those which involve the (mobile) web. Maybe thats because thats the way to get things done without involvement of operators.
Hats off to Vodafone for enabling the texting of “internet personalities”.
Hats off to Bango for enabling people who are used to the web to start getting their content out to mobile users without having to know anything!