Social Networking Sites and Mobile Phones
Most of us will have given in to some form of social networking or other, updating our Facebook status several times a day or exchanging email links for YouTube videos. Naturally, the social networking explosion has been relocating to the ultimate portable venue: the mobile phone. Handsets and mobile applications are being specifically designed to deliver that functionality to the palm of your hand, and astronomical forecasts are being made for the popularity of social networking on mobile phones. Revenue from user-generated activity is expected to rise from $572 in 2007 to nearly $6 billion by 2012! I’ve taken a look at what’s already available and what’s set to come in the area of sharing photos, videos and news.
Photos and Video
Increasingly, with some mobiles boasting 5 megapixel cameras and Carl Zeiss lenses, people are choosing to document their holidays, parties (and indeed daily lives) with their cameraphone rather than a dedicated digital camera. Moblogging has become so popular that the first images of the controversial 2012 London Olympics logo were released through a moblogger at the unveiling. Sites such as www.moblog.co.uk provide hosting and quick, easy transfer of snaps from phone to web; we use this service for Shiny Media’s moblog. There are also the photo-sharing elements of sites like MySpace and Facebook to consider, and I cover these in more detail below. Handsets like the upcoming Sony Ericsson K770i offer one-click transfer of photos to your own “blogsite” (online gallery) which you can then share the address of.
Flickr
Photo-sharing site Flickr went screaming ahead of its image hosting contemporaries with its clean interface and ease of use. It has long supported mobile uploads and there’s a mobile version of the site for quick rendering on phone browsers. The Nokia N-Series has been including one-click Flickr uploads since the N73 back in April 2006.
YouTube
Ah, YouTube. Keeps you sane on a dull day and is the cause of more sudden, random, inappropriate laughter in an office space than any other website. But streaming video on a mobile phone takes a good connection and a decent, up-to-date handset, even if you’re viewing YouTube’s dedicated mobile site – an unlimited data plan is a good idea too, as this can end up expensive. Vodafone – who inked a deal with YouTube earlier this year to stream video through the network - particularly recommends the Nokia N95 as “best for YouTube”. A large screen is definitely helpful and anything that speeds up the connection, such as HSDPA (nicknamed “3G on steroids”), would also be handy. The HTC Touch, therefore, might have a great screen but it’s reliant on EDGE so probably far too slow for video content. Be warned that YouTube mobile will not show every single video but more of a “best of” collection.
What about uploading to YouTube? Well, whether you knew it or not that’s been available since last year for anyone with MMS capabilities on their phone, smartphone or PDA. It just involves setting up some mobile details on the site.
Helpful Handsets: Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K770i, Toshiba Portege G500, Motorola Z8 (the first high definition phone), Samsung F700
Social Networking and Blogging Sites
MySpace
Since MySpace struck a deal with US provider then known as Cingular (now AT&T) last year, many a handset has added features that allow easy viewing of MySpace pages (no mean feat if the typical annoying wealth of customisation is anything to go by) as well as posting of comments and photos. Helio was one of the first to jump on board, with MySpace Mobile built into their phones in February of 2006. The list of handsets that support MySpace Mobile and photo uploading include the Motorla K1 (KRZR), Sony Ericsson W300i, Nokia 6682 and LG CU500. Unfortunately for UK hopefuls, until February 2007 you needed an AT&T account. Early this year, Vodafone finally struck a deal with MySpace to roll out MySpace Mobile access to UK customers. Certain handsets will come pre-loaded with the software, but it can also be downloaded on handsets that can support it. MySpace Mobile enables the reading and posting of blogs, photo uploading, profile editing, commenting, messaging, searching and more; you should be able to access all the most popular features of the site from your mobile.
Facebook
Facebook is emerging as the firm UK favourite among social networking sites, and it has a helpful Facebook mobile support page. Uploading photos is as easy as emailing Facebook, so any handset that can email a photo can join in. On the first attempt you’ll be sent a confirmation code to enter onto the site, but once that’s done you’re clear to continue freely. You can also quickly email or text Facebook Notes, as long as you’re able to send Multimedia Messages. Since all recent and even some not-so-recent handsets fall into that category, it’s a genuinely open service for those who want to share photos and so on. Facebook Mobile Texts is a more elaborate service which allows you to do things like look up a friend’s basic profile info, wall post, message, add friends and, of course, indulge in the famous Facebook poke. It’ll also send a text alert when there’s any such activity on your profile.
Twitter
Twitter and rival Jaiku are micro-blogging sites that are comparable in use to changing your Facebook status throughout the day; one line updates on what you’re up to are the key. Twitter by SMS is commonplace, so it would be handy to have an unlimited text contract, such as Orange’s Dolphin 35, or you can surf Twitter’s mobile site.
LiveJournal
Aside from the mobile site, LiveJournal always been a friendly site for mobile applications. It’s an open-source blogging site run by masters of the blogging universe Six Apart, and as such is constantly under development, adding networking features. TxtLJ enables blogging by text from any web-enabled mobile device, and for premium users there’s Mobile Posting that works by email, so the likes of BlackBerry users will find that an easy feature. LiveJournal also offers Voice Posting for paid users, where you can simply use any mobile for the very thing it was created for – to make a phone call – and it’ll be posted as an audio file on your blog when you hang up. 3 UK sealed a deal in February to provide fast access to LJ via 3G handsets.
Helpful Handsets: Palm Treo series, Orange SPV M700, Samsung U700, BlackBerry Curve 8300, 02 Ice
Social Networks For Mobiles
What about social networks made specifically for mobile phones? Well, there are of course plenty of those coming out of the woodwork, with Nokia announcing this Monday that it was creating a network called MOSH. Users can tag and share content as well as creating collections and it’s free to anyone that has a WAP or standard browser on their phone. You might expect it to be limited to Nokia phones, but it’s not; the only perk that Nokia users get is downloadable proprietary software to give them quicker access to the site. There are features that allow MOSH to be used from a PC to avoid potentially costly data charges too.
3 UK have also recently launched a social network for comparison shopping and rating. The 3 neXt site’s mobile version has been revamped to include reviews of mobile-optimised applications from Jaiku, Wikipedia and Shozu, ranked by users so that you can decide what would work best for your phone.