I’ve tried every social app for the iPhone (at least the ones with a fighting chance.) I’ve even given some of them multiple chances, because I really wanted them to succeed–Brightkite (iTunes) being one of them. Right now the shining star is Foursquare (iTunes), but I’ve already lost interest in that one too.
I think part of the problem is me. I’m not that social. That’s not to say I don’t have any friends or never go out. It just means I’m in my mid-thirties, I have kids, and I don’t get out that much. If I were a teenager, or single and in my twenties, then mobile social apps might be more appealing to me.
The Perfect Mobile Social App
There’s one huge problem with social apps that affect everyone. You have to manually update them.
Even old anti-social guys like me would use social apps on their mobile devices if we didn’t have to manually update our presence. So with that being said, I probably won’t use a social app again until it can solve the problem of manual updates.
For me, the perfect social app would automatically update my presence to a central server every five minutes or so. The same would be true of my friends. That’s it. That’s what I want, and what’s missing from all of the social apps out there.
There’s a beauty to auto-updates. The main thing is that I don’t have do anything to let others know where I am. But there’s also other advantages. They include:
- Automatically pushing a notification to me and my friend if we’re in close proximity to each other
- Automatically pushing a notification to me if there’s a person in close proximity to me that I want to avoid
- Automatically publishing my location publicly for places I’ve designated
Badges are cute, but I want my lazy problems taken care of first. Once that’s solved, I’ll be back.