From BusinessWeek - Will Email Really Be the Next Social Network?:

That’s what Saul Hansell suggests in his blog post about Google and Yahoo leveraging their email systems to create social networks. On the surface, it makes a lot of sense, given the huge numbers of email accounts and the wealth of personal data locked up inside email systems. But I’m still dubious.

The BW blogger makes a good argument against the NYT blogger’s suggestion (”A-list” blog fight!), focusing largely on the fact that email is an open system — that is, anybody can email me, but that doesn’t mean they’re my friend, or somebody with whom I want to connect. He also touches on the fact that young people are moving away from email, a trend that continues to grow.

But one point he misses: what about mobile? The mobile phone will play a key role in social networks; indeed, I’d argue that the mobile phone is already the dominant social network. That doesn’t mean just having a mobile web site, or in the case of email, the ability to check and send messages from a handset. People, young people in particular, are already living their social lives through the mobile phones — it’s only natural that the biggest social networks will focus on it rather than a web browser.