Younghee Jung and Per Persson gave an interesting lecture on Friday 8/4/05 about mobile social networking, from the Nokia standpoint, at Stanford, available online through video here (you may have to register online first). John Kern summarizes the topic of the lecture well:
This research project considered how a mobile phone could be used to
augment face-to-face conversation. How can one express some public
information about yourself to others? What if you could retrieve some
information about your shared social network?
From the Stanford synopsis:
Telecommunication products and applications have great influences on the ways people behave, perceive and construct their social identity and relationships. On the other hand, users appropriate communication products over time to adopt them into their everyday lives. The design of such products and applications therefore entail much more than good usability at hand: It is about the social
system that is manifested through user interactions enabled by the products, and how the community of the users experience the product over time. This is particularly important in the domain of mobile social computing since it is difficult to simulate social experiences in order to validate the concept with users.
Younghee and Per indicate that the social networking application will be launched in May for Nokia Series 60 phones. The upcoming Sensor embedded application will allow people to express themselves to others in their proximity, using DigiDress identity pages.
Nokia tested thoroughly the social implications of having discoverable identities on mobile phones, in particular with respect to:
- the identification of people you’d like to meet in a proximity situation;
- the use of identity information for breaking the ice;
- the further use of the mobile phone for increasing interaction by sharing content, etc.; and,
- the archiving of exchanged identities and instant messaging for later recall.
However, the focus groups they ran raised a number of issues, including reluctance to share identity information in a proximity discoverable situation, as well as the good point that "if you need an application to communicate with others, you might as well not communicate at all." So the application was simplified and different types of security features were built in, in particular to comply with legal and copyright restrictions.
Herein lies a major difference between the proximity aspect of physical social interactions and the centralized aspect of online social networks (LinkedIn, etc.). A great point was raised at the end of the lecture by someone in the audience: future wi-fi and mobile devices will be able to "mash" the internet and incorporate centralized social networking (more here), so the "social" safeguards built into the Sensor application may become a moot point.
Overall, it will be exciting to see this application in use, although it is heavily dependent on the penetration it achieves. In other words, it is of no use if only one person in a party has the application.
Then again, achieving penetration is partly the marketing department’s job, right?
Via Russ Beattie and John Kern
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Nokia’s Upcoming Launch of Mobile Social Networking
Younghee Jung and Per Persson gave an interesting lecture on Friday 8/4/05 about mobile social networking, from the Nokia standpoint, at
Next week we’re both going to be at Les Blogs. (For the benefit of anyone reading this, we haven’t met and don’t know each other’s phone numbers.) In the breakouts, 250 people will be milling around. Wouldn’t it be great if our phones could just seek each other out?
“Hey, Alex, I’m over here by the exit door.”
“On my way.”
Your comment is right on the spot and I think mobile social computing will gain popularity in a business context, at conferences and such.
In the meantime, we’ll have to manage to meet up “the old-fashioned way” …
Yes, finding non-acquainted but like-mined community members in conferences and fairs has been of the leading use cases/benefits of the development of Nokia Sensor application.
Nokia Sensor application will have a simple ‘group code’ functionality which will allow users to agree on a code and then enter that code into their digital personal expression (In Sensor called ‘Folio’). Whenever you scan for other Sensor users nearby, you will become aware if their group code matches yours.
Of course, you can also discover like-minded people by just reading the content of their Folio.
Sensor will allow people to discover facts/interests/opinions about acquainted and non-acquainted people that is not possible to discover on the basis of their appearance. In this way, Sensor will give an advantage over the ‘old-fashioned way’ of face-to-face encounters that will change the ways in which we socialize, meet up with new people and interact with already acquainted ones.
But first it has to become common in public places such as Les Blog conference. And that is not an easy task.
Happy Sensoring!
/Per Persson
Product Manager of Nokia Sensor application
Thanks, Per. It’s all about “object-centered sociality” as well as network effects, isn’t it?
Alex,
Nao e que trabalho com o Per agora? Ele se juntou ao nosso time essa semana. e ele ja me deu a mais recente versao do Sensor.
A outra coneccao e que trabalhei com per no antecendente do Sensor, fazendo um biz plan (que foi uma merda, mais nao por minha conta). Felizmente, sucediram com Sensor.
E genial!
Tchau,
Charlie
Heipa hei!
Que legal Charlie … eu queria muito saber como funciona, etc. Espero poder ver isto no mass market em breve!
Now Nokia Sensor application is available for download at:
http://www.nokia.com/sensor
cheers
Thanks Younghee, that’s great news … I’ll be following this closely!
And congrats for your product launch!
Nokia hat mein E-Business Konzept umgesetzt: Nokia Sensor
Soziales Netzwerken mit dem Bluetooth-Handy verspricht Nokia Sensor:
Spontaneous social circles
Your portable personality
Instant communities and networks
Free to download, free to use
Free file sharing
Genau dieses Produkt ha…
What’s this?
Per Persson’s Projects
I stumbled across the personal website of Per Persson, a Nokia researcher who is one of the designers behind Nokia Sensor. He’s worked on a number of interesting sounding projects involving proximity, mobility, and social interaction. The original work…
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