Mobile social networking is awesome. At least, the concept of mobile social networking is awesome. I'm one of those Windows Mobile device owners, with a data plan that supports Windows Live Messenger being almost permanently signed in, and an awful lot of visits to Facebook. I'm going to explore what I believe creates the perfect mobile social network, and why the existing services just don't quite cut it.
But first, we need to understand what makes up existing mobile social networks. Facebook, in this case, is a fine example. It provides two methods of being used on a mobile phone: either by SMS, or by using your phone's browser to access a cut-down version of the website. The former proves to be an incredibly frustrating experience, and the 160 character limit to an SMS doesn't even pretend to help the situation. The latter, however, is a much nicer experience, providing a greater amount of functionality and overall usability. But even then, you still have to reload the page every time you click something, and even on EDGE 200kbps connections, that can be quite a slow experience.
Windows Live Messenger on Windows Mobile, however, takes a slightly different approach. They have their Messenger and email functionality as native applications running on the handset, which connect to the Windows Live servers and stay updated for the duration of the session. This makes for an incredibly pleasant IM and email experience, as messages are delivered to you instantly and you have a lovely speedy responsive client, but obviously, Windows Live Messenger is lacking the sorts of social functions provided by others like Facebook. After all, Windows Live's Spaces are all going back to the browser's "Reloading the page for every function" problem, which is neither fun, nor cost-effective.
So, what exactly would make an ideal mobile social network application?
The application, first of all, must be a native clientside application running on the device. Windows Live Messenger does this very well, and it means that data is only transferred by the client when necessary, and that the rest of the time, the client is responsive and infinitely more interactive.
Secondly, it must also provide the sort of functionality that people have come to expect from social sites. The ability to snap a photo and quickly upload it, tag photos, send both single messages and broadcast messages, update statuses, send out and respond to event invitations, y'know.
Thirdly, the network must be straight-forward and integrated into other functions of the phone where possible. Windows Live Messenger on Windows Mobile has the advantage of integrating itself with your contacts list. If you add someone's MSN address to a contact, you can IM them just as easily as you can send them a text message. Because mobile devices are, generally speaking, small (and therefore with small screens), the user interface must be finely tweaked so that keypresses are kept to a minimum, while being able to keep a small but sufficient amount of data on the display at any given time.
Finally, the user shouldn't have to check themselves for messages. There should be instant delivery options by default, so that the device alerts the user of a message being sent to them, or being tagged in a photo, or being invited to an event. There's nothing more handy than having the option to be notified when the event is actually happening.
So, have any of the networks quite got there yet? Facebook certainly hasn't, nor has MySpace, and despite Windows Live's forward-thinking attitude, it's still not quite there either due to a lack of social functionality. However, an experimental project by Microsoft called "SLAM", is quite promising, providing many features you'd expect from a social network while still being straight-forward to use, and with a nice clientside interface.
Mobile social networking is popular already, and in an increasingly portable world, will continue to grow. Therefore, it's just as important that the network operators and the developers make a conscious effort to bring a smooth technology to the subscribing userbase.
