Social networking - the key factor that drives mobile usage?

Over the past twelve months, there's been a notable increase in the number of high-end mobile phones hitting the market, or a 'smartphone boom', as many commentators have called it. At the same time, mobile phones are being used more and more to access the internet, as people move away from their desks, and starting conducting their online life on the move. There have been many attempts to explain this change in behaviour, but the most compelling cause is the growth of one particular feature on mobile phones:

Social networking.

It's easy to note the possibility that social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have driven consumer demand for mobile data, but how accurate is this claim? Well, the evidence certainly seems to be in its favour. After all, Twitter actually began life as a short messaging service, that a user could update by text message. The sheer number of Twitter posts, or Tweets, that get published every day, as well as the origin for those (most seem to come from high end phones like the iPhone or Android powered devices) points to a high uptake by mobile phone users.

The same can be said of Facebook, with a large percentage of users using their mobile phone to update their status, upload photos and so on.

However, it's not just smartphones that are benefitting from social networking; other classes of mobile phone are also well represented, and there are even phones dedicated to social networking available on the market. The first 'social phone' was the Skypephone from the network 3. Its key selling point was instant Skype access on the move, but it also contained features such as a Facebook app and Windows Live Messenger. This led to other devices such as the INQ1 (the Facebook Phone, as it became known) and the more recent INQ Chat 3G.

However, there's one mobile phone currently on the market which stands as a convergence of those two separate ideals, a smartphone meets a social networking phone. It's the Motorola DEXT, and manufacturer Motorola even call it a 'social smartphone'. Although it's built on the Android platform, its front end interface is actually a custom Motorola UI called MOTOBLUR. It's MOTOBLUR that makes this phone so socially aware, by placing your separate information feeds on the front screen.

So, you get direct access to Twitter and Facebook, Google services such as Googlemail, and the Motorola DEXT will even let you pull in and integrate your contacts from social networking sites such as Facebook, so that your network of friends is always just one finger tap away. By allying those two specific sets of features (the interconnected contacts and social networking tools of phones like the INQ1, and true smartphone capabilities, courtesy of the Android OS), the DEXT stands as an ideal union of smart and social.

It also stands as evidence of the initial claim in this post, that social networking is one of the biggest driving forces for the growth of the mobile industry in general, and mobile data in particular. It seems logical to assume that is a fact, because after all, Motorola have pinned the entire success of the DEXT on just that fact.

Given how well the Motorola DEXT seems to be selling, it's compelling evidence that social networking is indeed one of the most important factors in driving the mobile phone industry forward. We are a social species, and there are many theories about how and why we evolved; most of them, however, have a strong emphasis on our role as a social animal being one of the main things that drove us towards intelligence.

So, perhaps it's only natural that when we get a new piece of technology, the first thing we do is want to gossip to our 'tribe', our friends, using it.