In Five Years, Social Network Connections Will Be Dial Tone

“In five years, everybody will always be connected to each other, instead of the web,” says Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO. It's the sort of thing you might expect a CEO of a fast-growing social network to say.

How right does Pincus have to be to create a new dynamic for services built around what we used to call "dial tone?" Probably not completely, or even mostly right.

Most people communicate mostly with a relatively small number of people, in their roles as individuals, family members, friends or members of various social groups. Even for most people in their roles as workers, the number of people one communicates with is relatively small.

So what is a social network, especially one with "presence" features? A way of creating the equivalent of "dial tone, the ability to initiate a communication.

Pincus says he often thinks of today’s social companies as providing the equivalent of “dial tone." It's an interesting comparison.

You might think non-real-time messages are not "communications" in the same way dial tone was. But even voice communications began to change with the advent of voice mail. Where once only synchronous communications were possible (a calling party reaches a called party), with voice mail non-synchronous communications began to be possible.

Since the advent of voice mail, other non-synchronous modes also have become important, including email, text and instant messaging, which can be non-synchronous, synchronous or nearly-synchronous.

In fact, blog posts have been said to be a form of non-synchronous communication very similar to Christmas letters, newsletters or traditional media, where point-to-multipoint messages are sent.

In that sense, social connections and networks do provide features and value quite similar to dial tone.

In Five Years, Connections Will Be To Each Other, Not The Web; We’ll Be Dial Tones

Native or Web Apps?

You might not be surprised if, at the end of the day, experts conclude that there are some apps that are suited to "native" or "Web" format and some that are suitable for specially-designed mobile apps. Still, there are some guidelines, Luke Wroblewski suggests, after hearing a presentation by Jason Grigsby.

Native mobile apps and mobile Web apps are both apps. Where performance is needed, native apps will always have better access to platform and resources. URLS don’t open applications, so mobile apps are better when a specific app needs to auto-run to provide the best experience.

The mobile Web is one area where most small businesses can benefit more from a native or Web app than a mobile app, Grigsby said.

The mobile Web also is more open, with few entry costs. Developers can hope to keep 100 percent of any revenue they can generate and can do instantaneous releases.

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Orange Says Europeans Prefer Mobile Web to Apps

Mobile users in the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Poland surveyed on behalf of Orange say they prefer to use the mobile web rather than mobile apps. About 70 percent of Britons prefer the mobile web to mobile apps, for example.

In France, 68 percent of users favor the browser over 60 per cent who prefer apps.  In less mature mobile media markets, there is apparently more receptiveness to app use. In  Spain 42 per cent see, to prefer apps, while 45 percent of Polish users favor mobile apps and 39 percent favor the mobile web.

In large part, those opinions might be driven by the increasing use of mobiles as an end point supporting many of the same applications people use on their PCs. Some 58 percent of U.K. users want to find the same things on their mobile as on a PC, as do 55 percent of French users, 58 percent in Spain and 72 percent in Poland.

The study also suggests that mobile use is cannibalizing some amount of traditional media use as well. Some 16 percent of mobile media users in the United Kingdom say they read fewer magazines and 14 percent say they read fewer newspapers.

Mobile Internet use does not seem to be cannibalizing either television or fixed-line PC use, however.

PC browsing increased for 25 percent of respondents and television viewing increased for 14 percent of respondents.

About 40 percent of European mobile media users surveyed also say they quickly check information on their mobiles and then spend more time with content when they are back in front of a PC.

In the United Kingdom mobile media is accessed by 74 percent of users when they are out and about. On the other hand, when at home 59 percent use their mobiles to search the Internet as well.

Fully 70 percent of respondents say they use their mobile browsers when users are on the move. In the United Kingdom, Spain and Poland, respondents browse for longer on the Internet when they are outside rather than at home.

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Networks Block Google TV Access to Their Programming

ABC, CBS and NBC are blocking TV programming on their websites from being viewable on Google's new Web-TV service, illustrating the problem with all efforts to create alternative ways of viewing TV programming.

Full-length episodes of shows like NBC's 'The Office,' CBS's 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,' and ABC's 'Modern Family' can't be viewed on Google TV, a service that allows people to access the Internet and search for Web videos on their television screens, as well as to search live TV listings, the Wall Street Journal reports.

As always has been the case, content owners will block any effort to disrupt their existing revenue models by denying legal access to the programming people want to watch, until some tipping point where content owners believe the results are at least revenue neutral, with further upside going forward.

42% of All Mobile Users Say They Have Downloaded Apps

About 42 percent of all mobile consumers have downloaded apps onto their mobile phone, the Mobile Marketing Association reports. About 25 percent of apps are used daily, and eight percent do not get used in a 12-month period.

Some 60 percent said their “most used” app provides entertainment, while 47 percent called their most-used app something “useful when on the go.”

Twice as many expect to increase (22 percent) as decrease (10 percent) their app downloads next year, while 40 percent expect no change.

Next year, respondents who plan to add apps say they will seek apps focusing on entertainment; restaurants; banking; and travel.

MMA-Luth Sept 2010 US Mobile Consumer Briefing -- Mobile Apps | Mobile Marketing Association:

StatFlash - Ethernet Exchange Market to Hit $674M by 2014

The market opportunity for Ethernet Exchange services is sized at $674 million worldwide in 2014, according to Vertical Systems Group. That includes carrier and enterprise payments for seller and buyer ports, virtual connections and service fees.

StatFlash - Ethernet Exchange Market to Hit $674M by 2014

Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses

Not every small business will find these results, but Chanel Huston, owner of Boutique de Bandeaux, an Etsy shop selling handmade couture-inspired hair accessories for thick, curly and kinky natural hair, says her business has tripled since she started using Twitter to find customers and promote her business.

"I noticed that between the four-month period before I started using Twitter and the four-month period after I started using it, my sales tripled," Huston says.

"I was on a message board for natural hair first, called Black Hair Media, and it turned out that a lot of the girls were on Twitter," Huston says. "Once I got on Twitter, I found out that there was a big natural hair community that would meet and give tips and secrets to each other.”

"Twitter helps me find the people who are actually going to be interested in my products, who have the disposable income to spend on them and have the hair type that’s going to be appropriate for my products," she says.

“Finding people on Twitter is actually easy, if tedious at the start, she says. "I started by making announcements on the message board that I frequented to let everybody know that they could now follow me on Twitter. After that, she went looking for Twitter users that have a target audience similar to hers and become a "follower."

Now she says she has a little over 3,000 followers, and for the most part, she responds personally to all incoming tweets.

There’s a lot of temptation to follow everyone, but avoid the temptation, she says. If you sell children’s clothes, for example, add people who are following parenting magazines or are in parenting groups.

Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses