I just wanted to post a quick note that I am speaking on a panel next week at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit:
Mobilizing Your Social Network
Are social networks merely features of existing applications and services, or are they a more fundamental element of the mobile ecosystem architecture?
Moderator: Adam Zawel, Chief Collaboration Officer, INmobile.org
John Faith, GM & VP for Mobile, MySpace
Mauro del Rio, Chairman, Buongiorno
Babur Ozden, CEO, ZipClip
Kamar Shah, Head of Industry Marketing, Services & Software, Nokia
Shawn Conahan, CEO, Intercasting Corp
Adam Zawel is of course the face of INmobile, (the community for mobile professionals) and a very insightful guy. I think the discussion will be interesting, given the following:
You cannot talk about mobile social networking without decoupling the brands from the functionality and then asking who will ultimately win. Is it what we currently think of as the leaders, like MySpace or Facebook? It certainly looks like it is theirs to lose. But what about Nokia, with its software and services strategy? Could they roll social networking functionality into their devices, integrating the social networking sites, and accrete all value to themselves?
Here is a post I made a few days ago on INmobile responding to Adam’s question about who will win in mobile social networking:
In my opinion, you cannot speculate about the future of mobile social networking without first examining what barriers or facilitators exist in the mobile space, as these will ultimately determine whether anyone even ::gets:: to win.
Secondly, you cannot handicap the winners without defining what “winning” is. I know opinions differ, but let me offer a perspective: Since social networking is an evolution of personal communication, and “facilitating the world’s personal communication” is about as big a vision as one might offer, then “winning” in this space would to be the first link on the personal communication value chain. In the same way that the first stop you make when searching for something on the web is Google, the ambition of every social networking site should be to be the first stop you make whenever you want to communicate with someone. Everything else is secondary - with the pace of technology innovation, a SN site can hardly expect to compete on functionality when parity among all competitors is achieved within months if not weeks.
So how do you become the first link on the personal communication value chain, and how does mobile figure in all this?
Here are some dimensions that I consider important when thinking about social networking in the mobile space:
- Social networking should not be treated as an “app on the deck” but should be viewed as a native functional opportunity as big as SMS or MMS
- Social networking is an evolution of personal communication, not a fad
- The most personal communication device in history is the mobile phone
- Social networks are the distribution channel for new media, and in particular user-generated content
- Social networks compete with wireless carriers because they are in the same business, which is providing personal communication services
- The best way for carriers and OEMs to address this competitive threat is to integrate social networking functionality into the device
- The first link on the personal communication value chain is the address book
- Whoever owns the address book owns the customer relationship and becomes the first place where everyone goes to execute their personal communication
- If the address book is on a server and not on a device, you better DAMN WELL BE SURE THAT IT IS YOUR SERVER
Notice I do not direct that last point at a particular audience. My impartiality forbids it. The simple fact is that anyone on the value chain could own the address book and it would still be somewhere between better to great for consumers in general. Owning the address book is the MOST IMPORTANT THING for everyone involved:
Carriers: Vodafone bought Zyb so they could sync to and own the master address book on THEIR server. A friend of mine at Vodafone asked me last week whether I thought they overpaid for Zyb, to which I answered they got a tremendous bargain, given the strategic value of a company that enables them to own the address book of all of their subscribers.
OEMs: Nokia bought Intellisync so they could backup the address books of all their devices to THEIR server.
Any social networking site would do well to provide its users a mobile address book centered around their service. After all, if a person is a die-hard Bebo or MySpace user, then they would likely appreciate having all of their friends, regardless of communication mode, in one place and built around the tool they use most often to communication with. The value to the social networking provider is obvious: When a user puts all of their contacts in one place on your server, that will definitely keep them coming back every time they want to initiate communication.
But the opportunity goes far beyond that. Assume for a moment that in the future you will be able to make your identity (or identities) portable beyond the confines of a certain social networking site. You could add your Facebook friend to your friend list on MySpace, for instance. Additionally, your mom, who uses no social networking site, could add your MySpace profile to her mobile phone address book, which will not only have your mobile number, but also a link off to your profile.
The social networking site that achieves this in the biggest way the soonest will not only be locking its users to itself for a long, long time, but will also be the single starting point for all personal communication, regardless of channel. It’s like being the master switchboard for all communication. THAT is a valuable thing to be. Or will it be a social networking site per se? What about a sort of “meta layer” or facilitator of social networking functionality instead?
For instance, what about the carriers? If there is not someone at every carrier at the SVP level or higher who is completely and vehemently fearful of the implications of losing control of the address book, then they run the risk of fucking themselves by misunderstanding the nature of the mobile social networking opportunity and incorrectly embracing the seemingly innocuous functionality that will ultimately result in their downfall. It would be akin to Xerox PARC giving away the GUI that made Apple and Microsoft what they are today.
Perhaps that was a bit strongly worded. 
I am provocative because I know that most carrier execs fully understand that they are competing with every form of personal communication, from email and IM to Skype to smoke signals. Yet the default stance is to “put a link on the deck” and treat social networking sites like applications or WAP sites. They may understand that social networking is an opportunity of some sort, but most do not fully get the size of the threat. And the best way to neutralize a threat is to make them part of your army.
Anyway, the silver lining in that the carriers shouldn’t even own this whole opportunity because there is a problem for the carriers in guarding the address book, which is that they are all more valuable when they integrate the top 100 social networking sites around the world into the address book. So if they give it up entirely, they lose. If they lock out the SN sites, they lose. If they partner, they win, but if they partner with the wrong company, they lose. The only logical move is to partner with everyone, accrete value to the mobile consumer by doing so, and monetize the hell out of it.
My conclusion: By building an ecosystem of interoperability and providing social communication functions via native device functionality, the social networking sites will enjoy more usage and happier users, the carriers will additionally monetize their base while reducing friction and at the same time checking a potentially competitive threat, the OEMs cross over to service model by facilitating device integration, and ultimately consumers get a better user experience. If executed properly, all ships will rise with the tide.