*Everybody* is accessing the web via mobile devices. Jonathan Schwartz says so. And Ray Ozzie. And all sorts of Chinese articles I read during my Taipei trip. And lots of folks at last week's Tier 1 Research conference, including the Hitachi guys who came all the way from Japan. Back home, they say, it's much more popular to surf via handsets than computers.
Katie Fehrenbacher, too, writes on GigaOm that camera phones + social networks are must have buzz words of the moment. Radar, she says, is one company that seems to be getting it right. To keep up with the times, I signed up over the weekend.
Radar has the same mobile features as Flickr, pretty much. You post photos to Radar's system by emailing or picture-messaging it to your unique address. The only differences are Radar's much more restrictive privacy settings (your photos can only be seen by people on your friends list), and the way it organizes photos (not as albums, but as "conversations"). Katie says the perfect use case is college kids posting late night drunken party photos - which doesn't seem tremendously profitable for Radar?
Instead of its current free-for-all format, what if Radar created shopping, food and travel channels? And rather than encouraging private conversations, maybe it could enlist users to become "guides" by posting/tagging wish list items and favorite places?
Friends, of course, could check out and comment on each other's picks. In addition, Radar could match interested users with like-minded folks who want what they want. Or highlight trendsetters who are the first to post popular things and places.
As its database grows, Radar could become the authority on best loved fashion accessories among teenaged girls in Los Angeles, favorite restaurants of New York City twenty-somethings, etc. Which would make it a resource for shoppers and tourists. Think of the advertising potential! It'd be an interesting sort of personal archive as well. Imagine looking back 10 years from now at the long-obsolete electronic must-haves...
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