This evening I attended the Chicago gathering of Mobile Monday, a local networking group dedicated to mobile technology. The meeting was held at Motorola’s downtown Chicago offices where Moto representative presented their latest device, the “socially aware” Cliq.
In case you haven’t heard of the Cliq, it is Motorola’s first handset based on Google’s Android platform and features an exclusive feature called “Blur” which provides users access to unique views of updates to social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. This capability seems to be the device’s defining characteristic, if not just a marketing focus to take advantage of current social networking trends.
The focus of the presentation was on how Motorola developed the device, which resulted after a yearlong effort involving a lot of research and design. The choice of Android was a topic of certain questions, in one case relative to Windows Mobile.
It is interesting that unlike Microsoft, Google is being far more flexible in how device makers can unbundle the included applications to create unique experiences targeting a particular user demographic.
For example, a Moto developer cited the contacts database in Android as having a customized implementation on the Cliq but that the data itself is a foundation that non-Moto apps could access should they need to. It’s a level of openness that Microsoft hasn’t shown in the past, wanting instead to probably be the definition of the user experience, with the device makers relegated to commodity players. Smart move it would seem on Google’s part.
While the demo showed how a user didn’t have to log into separate social networking accounts to enable the Blur experience, I immediately thought how similarly people might manage their “Commerce Networks” – the interactions consumers have with various advertisers and brands as part of a commerce relationship (loyalty programs, discounts, coupons, alerts, etc.). Instead of Blur, they could call it Buy.
It would seem an opportunity exists for this “single sign on” approach to helping consumers manage their purchase centric relationships via mobile device and incorporate emerging technologies like location awareness and augmented reality. As long as consumers had control over their preferences, this would be mutually beneficial.
