Apple: Hire me!

Why? Because I’ve got ideas.

For example this one:
Just combine social community and iphone!

(What comes out would be the ... I don’t know, <<iphonic web>> or <<the social netapple>>. But don’t forget, you are supposed to hire me because of my ideas and not my creativity in naming them.)

But what is so special about the combination of these two things that changed the world wide web and the market of mobile devices?

The possibilities.

Up to now any social network is based on stationary devices, so the possibilities are limited. And those stationary devices (commonly known as personal computers or notebooks which I perceive as stationary as well) are configured with the same old lame stuff from the eighties: screen, mouse, mic, maybe a webcam.
There is nothing very NEW those computers can actually DO.

They will not provide any new information to a second connected computer, it’s the same set of input, the same set of information variety. Therefore, one social community somehow equals the next. The topic might differ, or the community size. But the way the users are connected cannot differ because the set of hardware is the same. The basic rules of the communities don’t change.

But they will change if you take the iphone as the basic input device. It can generate so much new information which can be given to any social community, to any number of connected friends. Not only do they know whether I am online or what’s my latest status („XY is ...“). They will be able to know whether I am walking or driving and they also will be able to know how fast: In a car, on a train, on a plane or even in an elevator. I would be able to deliver information about my location, the use of my iphone, the latest picture I took, calender entries, my battery life and the connectivity status of my current network spot.
If someone wants to call me, he or she will see my current location, motion data, iphone usage, and by interpreting this data the social community can determine whether I am available to answer the call or not.

Even my offline social involvement can be measured by simply analyzing the sounds received through the microphone. The only (and thereby not privacy-sensitive) thing that needs to be measured is the distance of an ongoing dialog and the recognition of my own voice. My friends will instantly know not to call me that very moment because I am obviously in a conversation. And the interpretation of this data can be manipulated by me at any time.

For example, I can set up specific places and define them as a areas where I don’t want to receive any calls. And when someone in particular is talking to me in another, a second area, my iphone will recognize it and place any calls or other interactive applications on hold.

Furthermore, I can easily meet up with my friends just by looking up if they’re near me. And if they are, I can spontaneously contact them and meet them – if their very own <<iphonic web>> status allows it.

I can see that my girlfriend is in the local supermarket and quickly text her to get some milk.

Over the time I might notice that a close friend visits my gym every day at 5 PM and so I could organize my day to work out at the same time as he.

There is so much potential data the iphone could generate and all this data put into a social network could revolutionize my everyday life in so many ways.

Now let’s talk about the financing. Up to today the social web communities are free to be used by everybody. There are no costs per se for the user which makes the source of revenue so difficult. But regardless of any working financing concept (besides ads which suck in very many ways) everybody somehow knows that social networks might be the future.

The <<iphonic web>> (I will use this term for now) would ONLY be accessible through apple devices - more precisely the iphone series. This way, the iphone generates the first hardware-limited social community. And it would be another huge incentive for consumers to get an iphone (especially if my offline social network is increasingly using the <<iphonic web>>) and the increased sales alone will finance this specific social community.
Besides this, there would be plenty of data which apple could use to adjust and develop further innovative features in further iphone generations.

Of course, the <<iphonic web>> is based on the precondition that the iphone succeeds in achieving a level of coverage in a respective society that’s not reached yet. But given the fact you have read this to the very last sentence, I am guessing you believe in such a possibility and that it might be reality very soon.

a.dautermann (at) googlemail.com

June 24th, 2009