The “Look at Me!” Generation Goes Mobile
Date: Wednesday, October 24 @ 22:28:00 UTC
Topic:
One of the major buzzes of the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment conference in San Francisco this week is the new mobile social networking phenomenon. Adapting the models of the likes of Facebook and MySpace and making them portable, these services allow people to create networks of frinds on the move.
Following Google’s acquisition of mobile social networking start-up Zingku last month, coupled with the choice of Facebook’s co-founder Dustin Moscovitz to deliver today’s keynote address at this major show, serves to highlight the importance of this new technology.
Social networking services allow friends, families or colleagues to stay in touch wherever they go, primarily (primarily is the important word here!) through their mobile phones.
It also offers GPS geo-tagging of pictures and the ability to leave geo-tagged notes about restaurants, clubs, bars, shops, attractions etc. This alongside services that show where your contacts are on a map allowing you to find each other, communicate and even arrange real-world meetings. Yes, you remember, the face-to-face type of thing, just like in the old days! Joking aside, this new reality may actually facilitate more physical meet-ups if we all know who’s in the neighbourhood, pub or club. However, it may also come in very handy as an avoidance technique!
According to Jupiter Research, 28 percent of teens surveyed are interested in utilising MySpace on their cell phone. Utilising a mobile platform for blogging, messaging, sharing photos, videos and even what mood you’re in, a new fully wired – or should that be wireless - generation is emerging who will not only broadcast their whereabouts, but also their lives, as they happen, to a virtual network of contacts. In effect, a livecast and instant multicast diary with a searchable history of how you and your contacts are progressing through life – a new way of viewing reality.
Like the often regretted youthful tattoo, will your searchable reality come back to haunt you in years to come?
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