It is 2010, the year of the Mobile Web…are you ready for it? From a social media perspective, your phone can be a photo, video, audio, text gathering tool. I am a long time fan of Apple and use an iPhone daily to gather media and stay in touch with my networks. The FaceBook application on the iPhone is one of my favorite mobile applications, period. I use it all the time to check in, comment on a friend’s update, upload a video or picture and check my FaceBook email (I do not receive any notifications via email from FaceBook as I am a daily user). As reported today by MG Siegler (Go Blue!) on Tech Crunch, the iPhone app for FB just got a major upgrade letting you sync contacts from FaceBook directly into your contact address book. Besides pictures connected to contacts, this will make it even easier to communicate with your people. Using your phone to get your email is very 2003, updating your FB status and loading video and pictures fom your mobile phone is now officially standard in 2010!
Who is up for the most improved mobile app award? LinkedIN. Yes, they finally have evolved their application to be useful. A slick interface with relevant buttons, it is now easy to stay in touch with your LinkedIn network while on the road or traveling. The new application let’s you “reconnect” or find people you might be connected to, process invitations, update your status (of course), view updates, see who has recently updated their profile and most importantly view profiles(profiles are easy to view now and look great). The “recents” button is useful, saves you looking someone up again (even someone you are not connected to). What is missing? Questions and Answers. This is a little surprising since it is a great resource and very important part of LinkedIn. You also do not see Recommendations given or received on profiles. It is hard to give the LinkedIn App an “A+” without these features, especially as I think Recommendations are critical to the value added by LinkedIn as a social and professional networking tool. Still even with a “B+” – LinkedIN has earned the most improved mobile app award. If you do not have this App on your phone, you are not using LinkedIn enough.
I use Echofon to update my Twitter status, I rarely if ever use the mobile phone to read Tweets (too much information). Is Echofon the best? I doubt it, but it is free and it does not crash (also does a great job with handling pictures and links). I do experiment with other Twitter Apps occasionally, but have not been willing to pay for any. I do believe Seesmic will bring a great application to market this year, if you have blackberry or Android they already have a mobile application for you.
With all of the hype about the Apple Tablet (yes I want one) and the prevalence of net books, screen size is going up and it will be even easier to use the mobile web. Admob (recently purchased by Google) has released statistics all year showing mobile web usage sky rocketing, mainly due to the iPhone and iTouch (approximately 50% of all mobile web traffic). Based on my recent testing of the Motorola Droid, we are going to see even more growth. The Droid is a great mobile phone for people who refuse to have an account with ATT or hate Apple. Is it an iPhone, No! But it is a great substitute and will force Apple to continue to innovate (competition is great).
As you look to grow your business in 2010, evaluate how your employees are using the mobile web and include social and professional networking on the mobile web in your social media strategy. In 2010, the mobile web is alive and growing – how will you participate?
