2009: Mobile 2.0 will drive social media

2008 delivered huge leaps in social media uptake. Over 80% of net users considered themselves to be YouTube viewers. At our presentations, on a show of hands in the audience, more people had a Facebook account than didn’t. And, significantly, most of those who were not yet on Facebook were aware of it and many were considering setting up an account faced with peer pressure to participate.

The proportion of Internet users participating in social media will inevitably begin to level out over the next couple of years. However, the volume of social media usage among participants will grow rapidly.

Why? In 2008 many users became active creators on the web and contibuted content to Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al. However, it has been very much a distinct operation: log onto the website; participate; log off.

2009 will change this. In part this will be due to increased federation. Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect mean you will be able to be social on web sites that have been resolutely stuck in 1999. When browsing in a news web site, you may be able to discuss the article with online Facebook friends. Social media will be all over the web, not as “share this” links but as interactive tools driven by a single login.

But the key driver of growth will be mobile: Mobile 2.0, as it were. Smartphones are now the norm. Blackberry drove a generation of business people who were permanently connected to their email, communicating on the train or, yuk, on the toilet. (Yes, I’ve witnessed Blackberry usage at public urinals. Some people can be too connected).

Text messaging is even more pervasive, with millions of messages sent every day, particularly in Europe where SMS is effectively free. It’s convenient. It’s easy to use. It’s affordable.

The mobile phone is the logical place for social media, even more than the web. I’m an early adopter, and the incredible ability to make a short video at an event or upload a photograph, there and then, directly from a client application, is powerful. The iPhone is trailblazing with an easy to use and consistent interface, and clever third party developers.

Once we can access our social networks effectively on a mobile phone, so we can take them everywhere. Microblogging, as seen on Twitter, is an amazing tool: effectively zero cost SMS to groups of friends or business colleagues. On a mobile, why text when you can Twitter, given proper integration with the phone’s user interface rather than access through an inadequate and slow WAP site?

The iPhone has proved that YouTube is perfectly usable on the small screen. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many find it easier to keep up with Facebook during downtime on their mobile. Qik is making it easy to stream live video from events using a mobile. Yes, live outside broadcasts, albeit rough and ready. 12seconds makes it easy to capture the moment with an audiovisual slideshow.

This blog post has been written on my mobile. Just because at this time it’s more convenient (and, again, because there is a dedicated Wordpress application to make writing offline easy).

2009 will be the year of Mobile 2.0. In 2009 we will be more social than ever, everywhere.

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