Communities and Media
Many people have agued that mobile space is similar to the internet with respect to its increased use and application. In recent past, this has been validated by the meteoric increase of sites dealing with mobile social networking. We can broadly define social networking as the process of producing and sharing media information which range from simple write-ups to major and complicated video feed, allowing people to connect with friends and establish relations with new users of the network. The act of using a mobile phone to bond with virtual communities is associated with social mobile networking which has been enabled by the proliferation of wireless networks (Balas, 2008). Content distribution through messaging and media intensive information has made it famous among wireless carriers who regard it as a chance for data revenue.
Sites dealing with mobile social networking are twofold the current internet sites with mobilized version like MySpace and the sites which are exclusively for mobile network like Jumbuck and AirG. Statistics show the usage of mobile networking sites have increased tremendously and its only recently that carriers have started to employ a business model through subscription, m-commerce and advertisement. Sites for social networking are viewed by mobile advertisers as a blessing due to easy exchange of ideas among friends who use the network, thus introducing the concept of word-of-mouth marketing (Daniel, 2009). In addition, sites for social networking provide a forum where members can discuss and share mutual interest, and a channel for businesses who sell services or products that cater to this interest.
In resent past, mobile networking primarily focused on SMS and limited advertising which did not utilise the device capabilities, like locating an individual using the network through triangulation or GPS. Recently, usage of location-based and modern networking initiatives has been on the increase, and such features integrate aspects of mobility with the amount of user demographics so as to connect with the intended individual at any time or place. A new trend that is popular is the increase of applications focusing on geo-social networking such as Loopt, a tool that provides people with entertainment and enabling traders to display messages which are contextual and relevant (Warr, 2005).
Businesses using mobile social network sites to advertise can enter into a partnership with m-commerce to increase sales through an embedded link which measures efficiency of advertisement and the immediate gratification aspect. Wireless carriers also have an opportunity to share revenue from purchased products which have been advertised through these networks. Resent trends have shown increased use of social mobile sites, meaning that popularity of these sites is not just limited to the internet (Pack, 2009). Social networking using mobile devices promotes creation and sharing of information among individuals using a common network through a phone, where an individual is at times the consumer or producer of the information.
Popular networking sites which are internet based like Facebook, YouTube, Myspace and BeBo have developed mobile WAP sites to increase social networking and cash on the opportunity through advertisement. Mobile virtual sites have enabled people to view profiles, join chat rooms, make new friends, share photos, videos and blogs while on the move. The mobile phone is a modern tool that enhances social networking through the internet thus complimenting the PC as a result of its mobile factor (McSwite, 2009).
Location based social networking is similar to the communal based GPS system which enables an individual to know his location and that of his friends as well as selecting businesses he chooses to follow. Devices such as Blackberry and 3G iPhones have the capacity of supporting applications that are location based, and wireless firms are either creating or entering into a partnership with social networking sites to enhance their services. Interest on social networking has increased tremendously since the development of networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Smart phones and other branded applications are increasingly becoming cost effective thus enabling many people to network with each other (Catalina, Kusum, 2007). While iPhones command a small mobile market share (2) and Smartphones market is 14, they are gradually growing in a market that is expanding at a high rate. Its worth noting that iphones account for close to 50 of the entire mobile web traffic.
Analysts expect the usage of social applications that are mobile to increase due to conformability of smart phones applications in business and social context. Foursquare will be celebrating its first birthday on March 13th and is present in major cities across the world. It rewards individuals who check or register themselves at a certain restaurant or caf by giving them the title of a mayor. This may in turn give them the opportunity to get for example, a free pizza or coffee (Capgemini Consulting, 2010). Another start-up called Gowalla is becoming popular and people are encouraged to visit different sections of the city and collect digital souvenirs.
Established companies such as Google have also established location based products in the market. Latitude is a service launched by Google which enables friends to track each others movement. A social networking service known as Buzz was also unveiled by Google and it enables users to tag messages giving information on their location. Nokia purchased mobile-networking and online-mapping firms to reinforce services it offers to its customers. Foursquare promotes interactions where a user gets pings when his or her friend is nearby (Emlet, 2006). Dennis Crowley, the founder of Foursquare says that it gives people the opportunity to see through the wall and around corners.
The Dodgeball effort taught Crowley that not every individual likes to meet with strangers. At the moment, they are enabling developers to develop APIs which use foursquare for dating or just making friends, and to develop Mashups for mapping the social patterns of their friends. In addition to increasing social capital networking, there is the potential of finding private information. Participation in social networking is popular among the younger that the older Americans. While social networking has the potential of being used for political purpose, no such evidence exists in the usage in such activities (Orgnet.com, n d). According to Verba and Schlozman, usage of Facebook for political purposes is fannish and social networking in groups will in the near future remove civic gap based on age if they are expressly used for political purposes (Kohler, Watkins, 2007).
Technology has enabled people who are complete strangers to collaborate for social good. The search for Steve Fossett, an adventurer, whose plane went missing recently in the south west of America, is a good example. Amazon Mechanical Turk from Google produced pieces of south-western landscape and over 20,000 strangers were searching the area using their computers. When a group of ten people do not discover anything from their sector, the area is ignored (Boswell, 2010). If a person discovers something, it is passed to other people for them to scan the region. Such cooperation indicates that technology is being used for the social good of the society.
A wireless device allows users to remain connected to a particular network all the time, receiving alerts and updating their profiles. The increase of handsets and unlimited data plans which are favourable to social networking activities have contributed to increased sharing of information. Phones which are GPS enabled allows users to locate and communicate with other network individual who are in the vicinity. Loopt is increasingly becoming the preferred tool for geo-social networking through the use of the mobile phones (Orgnet.com, n d). Loopt is designed in such a manner that the user gets alerts whenever his friend is within a radius of 25 miles. This technology enables people to locate friends, tag pictures and places, and come up with events relating to the available location information.
When an individual consent to disclose his location, dots will show up on a map and an individual using the network will have the option of calling of sending a message to the person. A social networking site specialising only on mobile gadgets called JuiceCaster works in a similar manner and a user can see the location of his friends, and it also provide a chance to traders to locate their customers. The popularity of social networking has led to many partnerships between social networking sites and wireless carriers. Neilsen report titled Global Faces and Networked Places says that two thirds of the entire internet population in the world use social networking or blogging sites and account for close ten percent of all time spent on the internet (Chris, et al, 2000). In 2008, participation in Member Communities was one for every fifteen minutes spent on internet but at the moment, its one for every eleven.
Zuckerberg says that the new technology will become a social utility whereby a time will come when every individual will be in a position of locating people in the internet. For example, a woman in New York found a lost wallet on a cab and when she was unable to contact the owner through 411, she used Facebook to track him. In the past, GPS enabled smart phones were not very effective compared to their current usage. Every individual nowadays asks for a location based social network. Gowalla is a technology which is hard cheat, like for example logging into regions you did not reach, since one must produce GPS coordinates (Daniel, 2009). Twitter and Facebook are also developing location based technologies and catching up on Foursquare.
Current trends in sites for social networking show the increasing popularity of location based and real time concepts. Real Time enables an individual to contribute information and broadcast by uploading, a model which is the same as live broadcast in television. Twitter introduced the concept of real time where an individual can broadcast their thoughts or activity to the world with a limit of 140 characters (Boswell, 2010). Live Feed was then introduced by Facebook where an individual can broadcast his activities at the moment they are occurring. Twitters technology use words and a separate real time technology called Clixtr has been developed which focus on pictures. By using clixtr, a group can share photos and an individual can update them at any moment.
Clixtr is a location based site for social networking and events an individual creates can be geotagged automatically. A user is also in a position of viewing events which are occurring nearby using the clixtr iPhone app. Social media is increasingly being used to shape the buying habit of people. In both chat rooms and Facebook, individuals exchange information every time praising or destroying the image of a product. Social networking among businesses is commonly being done using the new technology. Companies can market their brand names by using social networking sites and discuss with their clients on the best ways of improving their products. In additions, teachers have started using social networks as a communicating tool with their students (Capgemini Consulting, 2010). Since most students use a variety of social networking sites, tutors are acquitting themselves with the new technologies so that they can use them to their advantage.
Professors and lecturer are even creating chat room sites to widen classroom discussions, post tests, assignment and quizzes, and also assist in academic deliberations away from the classroom. Science communities have started to use social networks to exchange their research findings. Julia Porter studied ways in which New Biotechnology Firms use social networking sites to spread scientific knowledge (Balas, 2008). They argue that by exchanging information amongst themselves they can improve their learning and flexibility in a manner that would not have been possible in a hierarchical organisation. Moreover, social networking for scientific groups is used to increase the base of their knowledge and share information, and when the modern means of communication is curtailed, their theories may become obsolete and irrelevant.
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