The Apple iPhone 3G: Changing the Social Networking Paradigm
The dawn of the electronic social age is upon us. It exploded with PC-based Internet, but you may question, where is it headed next? Mobile phones have gained mass-adoption by most demographics, but they have yet to really change the way that we engage in social networking. They primarily exist today as a means to enhance one’s existing social network as a communication medium.
But with iPhone 3G set to be released tomorrow, everything poised to change.
With the launch of the iPhone Application Developer Platform, individual developers now have the capability to rapidly develop innovative applications that take advantage of all the iPhone’s features. Now anyone with some spare time can easily come up with creative applications that leverage the iPhone’s location-based GPS features and high-speed internet connection. The possiblities are endless. Want to chat to the crowd in a 100-meter radius at a concert? Want to check out the profiles of all the hot girls in the bar on your iPhone so you can go on a directed attack? (ok, that one’s pretty lame, but you get my point)
What makes this application platform even more powerful is that individual developers now have a powerful marketing and sales channel, the iPhone Store, to distribute their applications to the millions of iPhone consumers worldwide. Think Facebook Applications, but for the iPhone. It’s a win-win situation for both Apple and the developers, as Apple stands to leverage developers world-wide to build vast quantities of innovative applications to enhance the value of the iPhone. At the same time, developers have a channel to distribute their applications with a direct incentive to develop applications by earning either revenue for downloads or indirect monetary benefits (advertising, social graph, etc.) with no-charge applications.
But who is the big winner amongst it all? Of course – the consumer. We’ll now have a very valuable social tool for bringing our social networking capabilities to a new dimension. With tens of thousands of developers around the world building their own unique and creative applications to get a slice of Apple’s pie, there are bound to be must-have applications created that change the way we live and communicate.
I would surmise that the iPhone 3G and it’s application platform will do for social networking what Netscape and the browser did for the worldwide web. Social networking was not meant to take place sitting in front of a computer all day. It needs to evolve to areas and events where you actually socialize, and can leverage mobile technology to enhance your social connections. The iPhone 3G is ushering in this new era.
Why am I so confident? Apple is cool, Apple is trendy; the product, interface, and design are all best in class; they have the commercial channel; they have the price that will drive mass adoption ($199); and best of all, they have the vision of how a consumer is meant to leverage their mobile device to enhance their daily lives.
And the commercial platform for developers now provides them instant access to bring the utility of the iPhone to new heights. Applications can be discovered, distributed, updated and shared with one touch.
And ground zero breaks tomorrow, folks. It will be an exciting time to watch it all unfold.
