November 19th, 2008
How to Build Social Mobile Applications
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As I work on my MobiChange application for the second round of Knight News Challenge 2009, my thoughts return to two recent posts on building social mobile applications.
Ken ‘Kiwanja’ Banks wrote a great post last week on the mistakes techies make in developing social mobile applications for the emerging world –
Progress in the social mobile field will come only when we think more about best practices in the thinking and design of mobile projects and applications, rather than obsessing over the end products themselves. By then most of the damage has usually already been done.
Ken gave some great advice, based on his own FrontlineSMS experience: understanding the need gap before entering development, learning from other tools/ players, prototyping early and cheap, partnering with grassroots non-profits, staying lean, being flexible, encouraging local customization, focusing on text and voice, starting small, working closely with early users, and building conversations and community over time. My own approach to MobiChange is similar and I’ll try to follow most of Ken’s advice in the months to come.
It reminded me of another great post in which Russel Southwood critiqued the social mobile space (via Katrin Verclas) and raised several important questions around usability, impact, scale and sustainability –
