Socially mobile

Social behaviour is inherent to people with phones you would think, but the internet is stretching how we understand social behavior. Being social is now closely linked to being part of a network, an online community, instead of just being accessible. It’s an active rather than passive attitude to our social relationships. But of course these interactions need to be designed, as more and more people wish to access their favorite social app (see Tech News World article) not an easy task for designers as screen sizes and resolution vary on each handset.

Some designers have avoided that problem by designing for the iPhone, the mobile industry’s newest and brightest kid on the block. Functionality-wise, it should be far from being an important competitor on the “average” phone market, but the iPhone understands that the integration of phone and internet. It understands that being social also means watching movies, playing games, checking email or Facebook, using Skype, sending pictures to Flickr. The good old days of playing Snake in the Tube are definitely over.

Additionally, should you be unhappy about what’s out there, you can develop your own application and sell it online, lowering the barrier to creatives around the world. (I wonder if New media courses will develop Creative Mobile Development courses soon).

I also wonder if this model could be applied to what Blyk offers and perhaps change the distribution paradigm. What if it offered the ability for someone to develop their own advertising content, submitting it back to the brand and if accepted have it distributed out through the network and get a share? This would definitely get the creative crowd excited.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized