What makes

mobile social networking

work?

Is it because its….

Always on…

Should it be?

Always on or only when you want it to be…

• Always on• Only the addicted• Addiction wears off

after some time

• Only when I want it to be• Mot ppl don’t want to be always on• It amounts to opening ur self to be

contacted• What is surprising is that most people did

not want to be always on. They preferred to even have contact mechanisms like SMSs when someone came online or when someone posted a message to be very selective. They wanted to be able to ‘Subscribe’ to someone’s presence alerts, or their messages or their status etc very very selectively. Un-subscribe has to be just as quick.

• The ideas expressed were:“In this day and age…I don’t appreciate so many intrusions…”“I don’t WANT to know about the lives of all my friends…”

Is it…because it is

personal?

What does ‘personal’ mean to

you?

Personal means…

• A big plus to mobility bringing a personal angle to everything was the fact that it enables people to be less lonely when they are lonely.

• It enables a validation of their individual existence. The fact that they exist and everyone should know about it.

• BUT the personal nature of the phone should also be controlled. There should be layers of personalization and personal information divulged to layers of people. One should be able to choose the people individually and change the preferences often.

• Tripping between personal and intrusive should be prevented and a thick gap maintained.

• Right now none of the social networks allows you to maintain that fluidity in relationships which exists in real life. On the mobile this becomes even more important because it is PERSONAL.

Impulse based?

Because it is…

What impulses make

mobile social networking

more apt than web or some other medium?

Define the impulses

• Boredom is the GREAT IMPLULSE getting people to latch on to mobile social networks. These are considered a great time-spend

• Pride is another impulse

• Negative impulses are a problem

• Anger may give you the impulse to blog about something negatively. But once you blog, its done. The fact that you are dealing with negativity comes out very quickly on a social network. Social networks, being on the web, give you the time to think…and re-think

• Whereas on the mobile, since you act on impulse, this may be dangerous.

Location based?

How important is location

from a social networking point of view?

Situations when location is important…

• Location enabling is good because it helps in entering less text. It helps in making things more contextual.

• When you are passing a café, then knowing who is inside• When you are shopping then knowing about deals• Etc etc

• Location based networking should be optional to the extent that the information being sent out to there should be controlled by the user.

• The selection of who the information is sent out to is really important

This is all we had time for!