The Ultimate Social Network

It’s no surprise that text messaging is the most requested feature on mobile phones. In fact, the top 5 most popular features listed in a recent Amplitude Research survey are pretty understandable given the evolution of mobile technology in the past 5 years:

1. text messaging (73%)
2. camera (67%)
3. e-mail (63%)
4. Internet (61%)
5. music (34%)

But what’s missing on this list is the one feature that initiates all communications on the mobile device: the phone book. Without it, mobile phones would be an accessory, not an indispensable communication tool.

So why doesn’t the phone book appear on this list of must-haves? Most subscribers (and their mobile operators) view it as a standard mobile phone feature. No one would buy a phone without a place to store their contacts. Without easy access to people’s contact information, initiating a mobile call, SMS, e-mail, mobile IM chat or a mobile location-based service is a huge aggravation, if not impossible.

Despite its necessity, the phone book in its current incarnation doesn’t deliver much value to consumers or to mobile operators due to its severe limitations

New on the horizon is the social address book, which transforms the phone book on any standard mobile phone into a social networking platform that makes it easier for subscribers to exchange contact information.

When you think about it, our real social network is the people we meet and communicate with on a daily basis, not simply a list on a Website. The foundation of our social network is literally in the palm of our hands: our mobile phone book. Mobile operators are right in the middle of this real-world network