Social networking sites have spread all over the Internet. The likes of MySpace, Orkut and Facebook are among the most trafficked sites on the web, but that is not enough, they are planning to invade the mobile landscape as well.
Vodafone, the leading mobile operator, announced in fact plans to deploy a service that will enable subscribers to access to social networking sites directly from their handsets. According to an article over BusinessWeek the logic behind that move comes from the younger audience that most social networking sites have, and “that same audience is equally attached to its cell phones. Millions of younger people live without a traditional landline, or use it mostly as a fast Internet connection. As a result, the convergence of social networking and the mobile phone is all but inevitable.”
Mobile operators have been struggling to handle the declining revenues from their voice communication, and value added services like data connectivity or community features like MySpace could invert that trend.
A Korean mobile operator called SK Communications is already experimenting with a social networking site called Cyworld which can be accessed through the mobile handsets. The company affirmed that they have more than 1 million mobile profiles already.
Mobile phones are really evolving towards a complete computing platform. Imagine in the near future when such phones will have more processing power, ubiquitous connectivity and foldable plasma displays… could they substitute personal computers altogether?
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