All of a Twitter

I'm really enjoying using Twitter wholeheartedly for the first time. It's a bit like tracking down an elusive party—a lot of my mates are hanging out there already. I'm also getting lots of inspiration for ideas for the integration of Blog Friends with Twitter (which is actually what prompted me to get Twittering). And you can now track my latest Tweets (should you really want to!) in the weaverluke sidebar.

But where's Twitter's business model? Fred Wilson, one of their investors, clearly feels that it would be a mistake to worry about that too soon, as it could distract them from growing their userbase as fast as possible. Nic Brisbourne agrees, but also points out that web entrepreneurs should at least have a "Plan A" for monetisation in their back pocket.

I suspect Jason Calacanis is right to point to mobile advertising as an attractive monetisation option for Twitter, but I'd go even further: maybe Twitter should get themselves acquired by a mobile telco who could pay for the SMS bills and integrate Tweets with mobile ads..?

Identity Society—happenings and musings

I found the Mobile Monday "Mobile Digital Identity" event at SUN pretty interesting. Alex Craxton (his report here) did a great job of organising and MD-ing the evening, and the panel session seemed to go well.

As ever, though, the topic of identity quickly escaped the confines of "mobile" and we ended up talking about facebook and its privacy implications! The discussion reminded me a lot of the "Dark Side of Social Media" Chinwag event the other month, with both panel and audience divided between the privacy worriers and the information-must-be-free advocates.

I guess I attempt to span both camps with my "i-together" philosophy, which goes something like this:

It's natural that human beings assert and protect the boundaries of their individual identity in "win-lose" situations (my money, not yours!—"i"); on the other hand, people allow those boundaries to become increasingly permeable to others as they discover mutual interests and common purpose (saving the planet etc.—"together").

The individual and collective aspects of identity look set to weave ever more intricately through one another in our evolving culture, creating all sorts of social patterns at many scales ("i-together"). And networked technologies like facebook and new mobile capabilities are only accelerating the pace of the identity loom's machinations.

A weaver's view, you might say.

Incidentally, Charla and I spent a lovely day with my friend John Madelin and his delightful family yesterday, and John and I took the opportunity to make some good progress on the Identity Society wiki. Do check it out and edit away!

Mobile Digital Identity event at SUN

So I am donning my Identity Society hat on Monday evening and chairing the panel session at the Mobile Monday event on Mobile Digital Identity, held at SUN Microsystems' London HQ.

My friends Dave Birch, Ajit Jaokar and Alan Patrick are amongst the panelists. As I don't pretend to know a great deal about mobile technology, I hope to learn a lot!

Mobile moolah

Om Malik reports another example of the convergence of "real" and "virtual" currencies:

Necessity, they say is the mother of invention. It couldn’t be more true in case of Africa, where pre-paid airtime is fast becoming the ‘virtual’ currency for Pan-African trade, overcoming conventional currency exchange and lack of banking infrastructure. It started out as phone users in Nigeria, especially in the rural areas trading minutes, but then the transactions took a mercantile trend.

Instead of paying cash, people started paying in airtime. Minutes became moolah and since the trend has caught on, and is being used for cross border trade as well.

Networked technology enables us to codify and transact information in a systematic way. It stands to reason that people will find more and more ways to tie the ephemeral values of that information to tangibly valuable things and services. And they don't need banks or governments to mediate the process (although the taxman is bound to take an interest soon enough!).

NEWSFLASH: O2 to deliver Google's mobile network

A fairly senior source at O2 confirmed to me this morning that O2 is indeed working with Google to deliver a Google-branded mobile network in the UK, as speculated by Mike Arrington of TechCrunch yesterday. I can't vouch for the reliability of that information, but it sounded pretty definite the way my source told it.

Google to launch mobile service in UK?

From TechCrunch:

We’ve heard from a good source in the mobile industry that Google may be preparing to launch its own branded mobile network in the UK in the next few weeks. If our source is accurate, Google will become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) via a deal with UK mobile phone company O2.

So we Brits could be the guinea pigs for a seamlessly Google-mediated virtual life? Well, I guess we are the global leaders in the evolution of the Surveillance Society...

Mobile operators poised to mediate identity management

Dave Birch writes:

[T]he position of the mobile handset as the basis of practical identity management in the real world is becoming unassailable. [...I]t passes all of the tests: it's portable, has secure storage, has its own keyboard for PIN entry and so on. But [...] it is controlled by the mobile operators, so people who want better identification and authentication to be used by "ordinary" people (ie, not nerds like me) such as governments and banks will end up having to cut a deal with them. But why wouldn't they prefer to pay the operator a penny every time you log on to your home banking if it saves them millions and millions in development costs, operating costs and fraud?

I'm sure Dave's right that our mobile will increasingly become our tool of choice for asserting our identity as we go about our lives—and that the mobile operators are in a fantastic position to take advantage of the massive new markets that will emerge around such identity management.

You are what you phone?

Nielsen Media has been asking some Australians about mobile identity—or rather, the identity of mobiles:

If you're carrying a Motorola mobile phone the chances are you are under 24 and fashion conscious.

But if you've got a Nokia in your pocket (or briefcase), it's a fair bet you might be a family-minded, middle-aged manager.

Sony Ericsson handsets are favoured by ambitious young men trying to make their mark; LGs are tops with mums; while Samsungs are wielded by young women focused on their career, a study of mobile phone usage shows.

Nielsen Media Research associate director Mr Jody Loughlin said all makes of mobiles had a wide spread of customer types but some groups were more attracted to certain brands than others.

Hum, am I really an ambitious young man trying to make my mark? Or does the insight only apply to Australians? And is 34 young these days? ; )