Social refinement – all thanks to mobile

While we are tooling about town in the sunshine, we will mostly be making good use of social media to get the most out of our time off from Telemedia Towers. And how social media has changed. Refined from being just a series of check in services that let you win badges, or shoot birds or whatever, social media now uses the tools of location, recommendation and peer group pressure to create services that actually enhance your life.

The launch this week of Whatser – a Dutch location based service that lets people collect bars, restaurants, shops and places and share them with their friends – marks a sea change in how mature social media, especially on mobile, has become. No longer the stuff of kids, it is now shaping up to be a serious business tool. 

In the case of Whatser one that allows smaller, local businesses to grow organically and gives such businesses a valid and workable alternative to coupon services than can, for the smaller business, actually cause a lot of bottom line damage, rather than boost sales. 

For the bigger brands, companies such as One iota are opening up the joys of using Facebook – which to all intents and purposes these days is a mobile social network – to create a new way of selling.

Together these two services mark how social media services are becoming the back bone of m-commerce, especially in retail. They are also becoming increasingly embedded in TV and media interaction services thanks to the work of companies such as MIG. 

We touch on how social networks are becoming something of a new 'OS' for many developers, but this belies what social really offers; these services are using mobile technology to refine how people use and interact with the vast amounts of data coming their way from cyberspace. This is the true power of social media and how it will shift how money is made around the digital environment.

And that is why social media sits at the heart of the seminar sessions being undertaken at Telemedia360 in Leeds on 11 May, sponsored by Core Telecom. There will be a range of companies that are harnessing social media to create new revenue streams around media and commerce on hand and much of the debate at the show will centre on how to operate in this brave new world. So, before you tuck into your pile of chocolate Easter eggs, sign up at www.telemedia360.com