Social Networking goes mobile

Social Networking goes mobile

“Picture this: a young woman goes to a party. She doesn't know anyone but it's fine because she has her mobile with her. A few clicks and she accesses the profiles of a dozen people at the party, including their pictures. She's in luck: two of them turn out to be friends of friends. She messages them and they start to chat.”

With this paragraph the author Mike Harvey starts his article “The future of social networking: mobile phones” , which was posted in May 2008 (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3897340.ece). As per opinion of the author,social networking via mobiles is next step after the internet based social networking (MySpace, Facebook).

As an example of a company who provides social networking via mobiles, the author refers to “aka- aki” , which is based in Berlin. This company brought internet and GPS/ Bluetooth technologies together and created the application which allows its users to define the location of “aka-aki” users just from their mobile phones. In other words, the user who has an app on his mobile phone, get the signal when someone from “aka-aki” mutual friends or other memebers are nearby. Then, the user can check the profile of the person, look to the interests, send a message, etc.

In 2008 “aka- aki” had 3,000 members. This number increased up to 500,000 members in March 2010 (http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/mobile-social-network-aka-aki-hits-500000-members/) and 600,000 in September 2010 (http://www.worldtech24.com/gps/aka-aki-600000-members-social-network-and-soon-game).
And "aka-aki" is not the only one who offers this service. Basic conclusion we can withdraw is that people of the 21st century are moving towards the social networking via mobiles. They are more relaxed about sharing their information and being involved into the chat or conversation with strangers who are just couple of meters away from them.

I think that the idea to bring the social networking from PCs into the people’s “pockets” is a great one. People can connect to each other anytime and anywhere. The access to people, to information has become easier and faster. Today, mobile phones applications on social network are just fancy and cool, but tomorrow they may become a way of buiding the network and the style of life.