The Rise of Social Media, Mobile Style

I just recently wrote about how Twitter has become my default source of conversation. My company is virtual, meaning that we are always mobile. I have a home office, or sometimes I work at the local cafe (where my wife won the local Apple Pie Bake-Off!), but I never use a desktop computer, haven't been reliant on a big corporation infrastructure since 2000, so I am always mobile. Mobility has its advantages. I can work where I wish, when I wish, and often, if I wish. But there is a drawback to not being tied to a place. There is no water cooler discussion. There are no office shenanigans (I am not sure that my kids clamoring to play games on my iPhone count as office mayhem). So, increasingly, being mobile is about creating a mesh of relationships that must be forced into existence and continually fed to grow. When you live in a town with as many dairy cows as people, the chances that you will run into a hard-charging mobile aficionado who thinks about Web 2.0 (3.0?) who can be your go-to sounding board are pretty slim. So, I must drive relationships and create remote connections that are valuable and lasting. This is different than creating friends. Friends are rare. But social networks are critical to business, information and community.


I was just reading with great interest, Charlene Li's posting on The Future of Social Media . She paints a great picture of social networks that are aware of what you do rather than what you profile. So, for instance, Facebook would be able to see that you e-mail or Tweet or IM your friend, Susan, on a daily basis. Facebook would make you two friends automatically. LinkedIn would know that you work with Bob, so you'd automatically join in each other's network. That is a fantastic notion, and, I suspect, where we are headed.


But what about today? How do mobile workers create this loose mesh of social contacts and relationships. Here are a few ways that I do, and that make my life richer. And, I use all of these from my laptop or iPhone, and I am always on the move:

1. Twitter : It is my constant companion. Frankly, I am a little shy about posting things like "I am headed to the Mall to return my Old Navy sweater" This seems like a bit of grinding minutiae that I don't even care about. But as a source of inspiration, news, and provocation, I have found nothing more exciting. I use TweetDeck on my laptop and Twinkle on my iPhone.
2. GMail Contacts: The suggested contacts feature. while not revolutionary, is really nice. It reminds me of whom I am communicating with at the moment and that spurs me to connect with them.
3. Facebook : Frankly, I use Facebook almost exclusively via my iPhone. I love catching up on the photos of my distant friends. Facebook, for me, is more about keeping up with my real friends, more than social network contacts. And for me, the most important part about Facebook is looking at and uploading photos. Love it.
4. TripIt : I travel often, and TripIt lets me see where my friends and professional colleagues (who have also opted into TripIt) are traveling. It would be infinitely cooler if this were integrated into my personal profile on Facebook, or wherever, but it keeps me in touch with others on the go.
5. Yelp : Like Facebook, I almost always use Yelp via mobile. It helps me decide where to eat or grab coffee when I am someplace new. I follow a few Yelpers in various cities. In this case, I am largely a lurker, not contributing to the discussion, but benefiting from the aggregate experiences. Perhaps I will get more active. I just have soooo many things to update. (And OpenTable is pretty good too)
6. Hulu /You Tube : While not really a social activity, traveling brings with it some missed television shows. I can almost always find them on Hulu or YouTube. You Tube, with its commenting features, is vastly superior than Hulu in a social way, but the content is better on Hulu. 
7. Instant Messaging: There was a time, specifically when I worked in a big company, that instant messaging was all the rage. Now I use it sporadically, but Skype and GTalk are wonderful phone replacements.

These are the tools that I use, everyday, to make my world both smaller and bigger. What do you use?

How I Came To Love Twitter

It was just about a year ago, in my Obligatory Year End Post that I highlighted Twitter as a service that I wish would die. Well, fast forward 50 weeks, and I am a regular tweeter (@timkilroy). I have TweetDeck on my laptop and Twinkle on my iPhone. In fact, Twitter has become a more emotionally important mobile activity than e-mail. (E-mail is usually about work, and Twitter is an active conversation. Frankly, Twitter just appeals to the AAD monkey in my head that is constantly looking for some great, interesting thing to ponder.)


Twitter, especially in its mobile component, allows me the opportunity to engage with folks in the UK, Egypt, SF, wherever. I suddenly have conversations with an incredibly diverse array of folks. I have had questions answered about Drupal , had conversations about Dustin Pedroia , and learned of a friend's major life event via Twitter. It is more real-time than Facebook, more conversational that e-mail, and more diverse than you might find on a single focus chat board (like AppleInsider or something).


I think the change for me has come from the growth in population on Twitter. There is enough of an audience for Twitter to be a tool, for Twitter to become a community, and for Twitter to take on a customizable voice. Most of the folks that I follow are talking about their interests, their professional opinions, and the exciting discoveries that they make. It has become a critical information for me. Frankly, when Twitter goes down, I am depressed. I miss the constant stream of conversation. 


Twitter is definitely NOT on my list of services that ought to die. I want to add more voices to the conversation!

M-Commerce Arrives (Finally): Amazon iPhone Mobile Client

Finally, there is something really exciting to talk about in mobile. Well, not finally, as I have been talking about this since 2005, but M-Commerce has arrived in a really well integrated fashion on mobile, Amazon Mobile. Let's run down the quick list of hits and misses in m-commerce, and then, let's see where Amazon Mobile points us.

Hits (Let's honest, none of these are really hits, your Mom has never heard of any of them...but I bet she's heard of Amazon):
ScanBuy: The granddaddy of mobile commerce allows the user to take a photo of a barcode and get back some results. Used to be clunky, but now is pretty useful, and the ScanBuy technology is pretty promising on a lot of fronts. 2-D barcode reading as mobile marketing device has some interesting promise, but their ScanLife m-commerce (well, not really the commerce part) comparison shopping service has been available for a long time and set the standard.

S'Lifter: S'lifter took a novel approach to m-commerce. They aggregated local stock levels of real world retailers and returned comparison shopping results in a stock and location aware fashion. Nice approach. It has some good success, available via Sprint and Virgin Mobile (and maybe others). Big issues are friction around getting inventory levels from retailers and no way to close the loop on a purchase. (How does a retailer know that you found the product via S'Lifter?) Would be terrific if integrated with a buy online pick up in store idea. (Disclaimer, I used to work for S'Lifter...I think they are terrific people that work really hard and have a good vision.)

That is about it. There are thousands of misses. Obopay, MobileLime, the list goes on and on.

So why has m-commerce not become a significant channel? Well, there are two obvious reasons carriers and retail point of sale issues. So, whatever. Carriers got in the way. They are starting to get out of the way. Eventually they will. Retail point of sale is a bigger issue. Commerce via mobile (using the mobile device as a payment channel) is a nearly intractable problem because of the infrastructure needed to support it. (Imagine every 7-11 or Macy's with an NFC terminal attached to their POS...impossible). 

But, there is this in-between world of delayed fulfilment via mobile that Amazon is hitting really well. It isn't a new idea, because lots of retailers (including Amazon) have had WAP sites where you could buy goods via mobile devices for a long time. But Amazon takes things to a new level by leveraging the strengths of mobile. 

Amazon has created the "Remember" function which allows you to take a picture of an item with your iPhone camera. The image is sent to Amazon, crunched, munged and played with and in a few minutes you get an e-mail with a link for to your item in the iPhone app or the web. I did it with my Jawbone headset sitting on my desk. It analyzed the photo (not a good one, mind you) and found my headset in a different color. It took about 5 minutes. Perhaps longer than I want if I want to do some comparison shopping in a store, but perfect if you see something while you are out and want to check it out later. 

Perhaps, best of all, Amazon uses its One-Click checkout and automatically handles the payment and shipping. I suspect that later iterations will use your Amazon address book to let you send things to other people.

And, Amazon is now letting other merchants use their checkout...this is the start of something terrific. It has taken a few weeks, but I am jazzed about mobile again!