The MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software) arena is clearly hotting up right now, even more so following Google’s purchase of Dodgeball a few weeks back. It’s also interesting that a billion dollar entity like Google still buys tiny little two-men-in-a-garage startups.
So I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts on the sector.
Online YAFRO’s (a term coined by VC’s in response to the endless business plans submitted – Yet Another Friendster Rip Off) were the big boom and fizzle sector of last year. Sites like Friendster and Linked-In attracted significant funding without having much of a clue about a business model. This isn’t such a bad thing – it’s easy to forget that Hotmail, Google and Yahoo! before them all didn’t have much of a business model on launch, which clearly hasn’t held them back.
The problem is that online social networking still doesn’t have much of a model. Linked In is trying to make money from the job search market, while the others play around with various subscription-based revenue generation ideas.
Can the MoSoSo concept fare any better?
The basic idea of a MoSoSo is to overlay a location and time element to the idea of digital networking. So it enables you to find people in your vicinity and at that time for social, sexual/dating or business networking. It’s worth noting that the time variable is often overlooked in analysis of MoSoSo dynamics.
Examples of MoSoSo usage might just be to find out which of your buddies are in the area you’re drinking in. Or find friends of friends, on the basis that if you’re both pals of the same person, you’re likely to have something in common and unlikely that the other will rape you. Or you may want to find other people interested in collecting rare stamps, so you can say “Hi, lovely set of Penny Reds, you’re got there!”. Or find business contacts who are in the market for your services.
All this you can do with your mobile phone. You can use the low-tech Dodgeball way – essentially sending an SMS saying “I’m here, who else is nearby?”. Or more sophisticated methods relying on location identification or the new Nokia Sensor – a Bluetooth-based solution.
The main issue all these ideas face is the old “critical mass” chestnut. If you’re out on the town and fancy a hot date or a cold beer with a pal, you might try this kind of service. But if it fails to turn up anyone, you’re going to lose interest pretty quickly and forget to use it.
This isn’t such a problem if the service is completely automated, simply requiring the use to react. This means that even if critical mass takes time to build, at some point the service will alert the user and stand a chance to gaining usage.
This element is also important anyway, as the best services work with, rather than against, inertia. If you can avoid making the user have to do anything (other than sign up or download an application) you’re making your life and theirs much, much easier.
So I’d say the first requirement for a successful MoSoSo is an automated process, where upon joining or downloading the application, the phone, or server, does all the work.
The second really-nice-to-have would be an existing community to recruit from – the obvious one being an existing online social networking site. But others could include an online dating site or media owner – The FT would be a good one for business networking, for example.
The third element would be distance. Currently Bluetooth works over about 10m, which is far too short. When you factor in the time dimension (don’t forget this is about people being in the same place simultaneously) you’re simply never going to find a target to hit, unless the parameters are really, really wide – like “humanoid, male”.
The exception to this might be at specialist networking events, like trade exhibitions, where a niche market may exist for this type of product.
So, it has to work over greater distances – maybe a square kilometer (?), certainly while critical mass is being built up.
Profiling is also key as the user needs to feel that she’s in control and can change the parameters whenever she wishes.
The final area is the business model. The Nokia angle is to sell more handsets and maybe for the initial download of the application, although I doubt it, in this case. But the real gold is being able to charge by usage, rather than a one-off charge.
I think the answer lies in a hybrid of Premium SMS and phone based application. In other words, you’re allowed top line information for free (eg that there are three available, blonde, female, Aquarians within 100 metres) but you have to pay a small fee to find out who they are and get contact details.
This area also might be ripe for sponsorship by the right brand, if its keen on being seen as a bringing people together or a business networking catalyst.
What have I missed out? Has anyone seen a MoSoSo that they think has legs?
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