Our intern Sarah reports back from this week’s MobileMonday New York…
MobileMonday was a blast (even though I had to sit in a hard folding chair and dodge a creepy old guy for two hours). It was most interesting to hear from the start-ups that presented–MOBOW, Next2Friends, and SKYHOOK Wireless–and how they are approaching the rapidly-evolving mobile space.
First up, MOBOW took the stage to tout its hyper-active address book application. This app works in tandem with your contact list to help you see which contacts are available without contacting them—sort of like the away message on your AIM, but better. The site and interface look like it is geared for professional but I think it would be perfect for a young person trying to see if their friends are in class, busy with craziness, or free to talk.
Second, Next2Friends introduced their mobile SNS that boasts lightning-fast live streaming and swift transferring via data instead of MMS. While Next2Friends offers a limited handset list at the moment, they do have an LBS in the pipeline that will let users find friends and leave notes for them. LBS+SNS is a smart move, and one that neither Facebook nor Myspace are leveraging properly.
Finally, SKYHOOK Wireless talked about its partnership with Apple and its application Loki. The LBS Loki uses wifi signals to triangulate your position to then broadcasts that position to your friends. Loki powers some cool mobile applications, but seems fun for random users as well. For example, you can add it to your blog or in your email signature to let everyone know where you are when sending or posting.
The overreaching theme of the night, in these pitches and on the panel, was location, location, location. Everyone in mobile (and beyond) needs to think of how they can best take advantage of LBS. But one thing that people didn’t stress enough, I thought, was the difference in usage habits between age groups. At one point, a screaming match broke out about how many social networks “people” use regularly. Still, the distinction was never made between young “people” and old “people”. Obviously the behavior will differ. Such generalizations were also made about mobile use, but teens are going to use it for texting while dad may use it to track his schedule.
Next2Friends streamed the entire event through their site, so if you missed it you can still check it out.
