Interview on mobile social networking

Social networking has being the hot, hot trend over the last few years. Over the next few years mobile social networking will in turn become massive. There have been a number of interesting initiatives I’ve referrred to over the last years in this blog and my books, including Dodgeball and its acquisition by Google, the location-based Meetro, and Japan’s Imahima. Now that a large proportion of people in developed countries have rich media capabilities and location capabilities on their phones and handheld devices, the stage is set for mobile social networking to soar. Proximity dating (in which you are linked with compatible people who are currently in the immediate vicinity) is something I first wrote about in 2002. A potential killer app is the ability to see on a map your friends’ location and to arrange meetings. Of course, existing social networking platforms will go mobile, as in the recently announced deal between MySpace and Cingular to offer MySpace on mobile phones. There are many more dimensions to how mobile social networking will become pervasive – this is a field that will explode in the next years.

I was recently interviewed on mobile social networking for the Mobile Media Show and spoke about these and related issues – the podcast is available from here. To quote from the Mobile Media Show introduction:

My guest on the show is Ross Dawson, a consultant and commentator on the global network economy.

He recently made comment on the suitability of mobile phones for social networking and how Australia is lagging behind this trend due to high data charges imposed by the telcos, arguing it has been limiting the capacity for experimentation.

Ross discusses proximity dating, mobile as a tool for social networking and how developments like video glasses will change the way content is consumed on portable devices.

I start this interview by asking Ross to fill us in on the history of mobile content in the USA and how their unlimited data deals have made them leap frog other countries to now be a leader.