Mobile social networking - how I'll know when it's going mainstream....

This falls into the category of "amusing personal anecdotes" rather than "rigorous industry analysis". But it also reflects on the complexities of getting user experience right, and mapping telecom and mobile services onto the way people actually live their lives.

One of my close friends is, for want of a better term, "a bit of a player". Trying to keep track of the various females in his life is a fulltime job. One thing is clear though - FaceBook is pretty important to him, as is SMS, MSN, Gmail and obviously mobile voice. He doesn't have a landline, and his Blackberry is strictly work-only.

But although he uses FaceBook as a hub for his busy social life, he does not really appear bothered (yet) about getting mobile access to it. He'll ask people he meets "Are you on Facebook?", remember their name or email address, and add it later via the PC.

I'm the same - even though I do look at FaceBook on mobile, I think I've only ever once "added a friend" on a phone - and that was in the relaxed confines of a conference, rather than in a noisy bar. (Note to readers: I don't have work contacts on FB, so please don't request it).

Conversely, if my friend wants to swap phone numbers, he'll type in the number and "give the other person a missed call" so they get the caller ID. Sometimes he'll just hand the phone to a new acquaintance and invite her to type her own name & number directly into it. He might also add an email address or IM nickname.

I've seen various people suggesting that mobile "will become the new social network". I'm not 100% convinced, especially because of the incumbency of Facebook / Myspace / Bebo etc. On the other hand, whoever gets the "add friend" experience working first is probably going to get a huge advantage.

When I see my friend say "Hey, you're really cool, we should meet up some time. Put your Facebook ID in my phone" I'll know it's really going mainstream...

Dual-SIM phones - separating voice and data?

There are already a few dual-SIM phones around on the market, like the Samsung D880 and LG KS660. They are particularly popular in markets for which there are advantages to arbitrage between different carriers' networks, especially for prepay users. Some tariffs do not include "cross-network" minutes, so it's easier for users to simply have multiple SIMs and numbers than waste money on off-net calls.

Most of these phones have been 2G-oriented, although there are some 3G ones emerging as well.

It strikes me that there could be a large market for dual-SIM devices which are optimised to work with one 2G (voice+SMS) SIM, and another for 3G data. So, for example, you could keep your existing voice service while roaming, but benefit from a local cheaper prepaid data SIM.

In fact, even when not travelling, it would be good to be able to disaggregate the voice and data plans, and purchase them from two different operators if that offered better price / coverage / speed. Yes, it would mess up some of the ideas that operators are trying to push with mobile social networks and IMS concepts like RCS, but as an end user I'm not really bothered by that.

Clearly, this wouldn't be for everyone - and there would definitely be value in operators and device vendors offering innovative fully-blended services to try to keep people bundling everything in a single contract. But it would be good to have healthy competition to keep them honest.

Really, the best outcome would be to do away with the legacy SIM card altogether, so you could sign up for the access provider(s) of choice more easily - and switch without hassle. Or perhaps the ownership model for SIMs needs to change, so that you the user (or a neutral 3rd-party) own it, rather than the network.