Last week’s big news for some was the leaked information about the new BlackBerry site (social networking huh?) called MyBlackBerry (at myblackberry.com). When a friend emailed the news to me I was actually somewhat surprised by it. After reading the piece at Berry Review all I could do was scratch my head and wonder how this fits in the mobile and social spaces.
Since we are both mobile and social creatures this could appear to be a good thing. What I am not convinced about is RIM’s attempt of creating a separate social network for BlackBerry users. To me, it almost goes against the notion of social… You call people out from where they are (already engaged in their own social interactions of choice) and you ask them to join you and others where you want them to be. I am of the opinion that you are social where you choose to be social not necessarily where you are told to be.
However, there is still a chance of this working as much as there is a chance of it not working. People may very well choose to be social on MyBlackBerry – mostly because BlackBerry still has enough pull to attract users to this site.
But without yet looking at it (didn’t get an invitation and it doesn’t seem to accept common folk just yet) and with no inside knowledge at all at the moment it truly sounds more like a forum with a ‘social’ facade. A spruced up version of their current forum.
Instead of asking people to come to their site to be social, engaging people where they already participate and are socially active is a better idea.
What about Enterprise Users?
This launch reminds me of the post I wrote a few days ago on the idea of a Personalized Mobile Enterprise Gateway.
I realize (or I think I do) that this is not aimed at Enterprise Mobile users and that it is aimed squarely at the consumer. Enterprise users however, are consumers at the same time, so they may engage depending on their needs and issues (and level of fanaticism).
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