Archive for October, 2008|Monthly archive page

Facebook and MySpace on mobile – stifling?

Posted October 22, 2008
Filed under: mobile |
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A new report by ABI Research shows that almost half of those who use a social networking apps such as Facebook and MySpace on the computer have also accessed these networks through their mobile phone.  What are people doing on these networks while out and about?

  • checking comments
  • checking messages
  • posting updates
No surprise that Facebook and MySpace dominate as they provide a one-stop-networked-shop. But one of the killer affordances of mobile is location-based services. Neither Facebook nor MySpace provide this kind of service (yet). There are other networks like Brightkite and Yelp that incorporate location, allowing you to find people or places in context, but these social networks have relatively small market share. Our friends at Ars Technica provide some more details on this - basically, if and when will Facebook and MySpace start to leverage location-based services? And while they take their time, will some of the smaller players start to rise?
An important element of the discussion is the ability of the mobile device to run location services in the background while still communicating with the application. This is something that the popular iPhone doesn’t do, but other devices such as the new Android-based G1, Blackberry, and many Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices can do. This is basically about your device being aware of your location so it can connect you to people and places automatically, as opposed to you having to manually open a particular app so the device can then sense where you are. Think head out of the sunroof vs. being stuck in the trunk and occasionally being let out to look around. 

Android is (almost) here

Posted October 22, 2008
Filed under: android, mobile | Tags: , , ,
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Tomorrow the Android-powered, T-Mobile G1 officially goes on sale to the public (sooner if you live in SF or put in an online order.)  The G1 was released to select “reviewers” over the past few weeks, including Walt Mossberg (WSJ), David Pogue (NYT), and others. For the most part the reviews are good. Here is a mini wrap up of the highlights from the handful of reviews I’ve read:  

  • OS is very fast and offers lots of customization
  • OS is not as polished as the iPhone’s
  • Hardware is not flashy or sleek, but it does include a full, slide-out keyboard which people are saying is decent but not amazing
  • The online app store, the Android Marketplace, is up and running, but only has a few dozen apps available so far (compared to the iPhone’s several thousand
  • OS is very closely tied in with Google services (as you’d expect from a “Google” phone); NO Exchange support out of the box (there is speculation that people are working on this and we’ll see something soon.)
  • Integration with Amazon’s music store and with YouTube video is good
All in all, good reviews for the very first, v1.0 Android device.  Expect to see additional Android devices next year as other manufacturers start using the OS. Of particular note, Motorola recently hired a boatload of Android-focused developers to create a social networking-oriented phone to be released Q2 of 09.
Om Malik wrote up a good post on how the G1 is not a direct iPhone competitor, but more of a direct threat to the Microsoft mobile platform. Probably more so if the Android community can figure out how to connect into Exchange asap. Interesting to note too that Andy Rubin, one of the masterminds behind Android, was a founder of the Danger platform that runs the popular T-Mobile Sidekick devices. No doubt there is plenty of Danger/Sidekick influence in the Android G1.
And Microsoft bought Danger earlier this year.  Hmmm.