Hearts, minds and the mobile address book

Your real social network is not listed on any Web site. More likely, it’s in your mobile handset’s address book. Because in the real world, you “friend” someone by exchanging phone numbers. And while we text, IM, e-mail (or forward articles, jokes and other curiosities) to a larger group of friends and acquaintances — some of whom we haven’t talked to in years — the more we actually talk, the closer the bond.

Territory is already being staked out. At the CTIA show last week, Yahoo! called its oneConnect app “a revolutionary social address book” that brings together your people and your life with a full-featured phone book, which integrates contacts from your Yahoo! address book and social networks. In the same week, Visto announced its own “living address book,” which combines e-mail, social networks and messaging into one user interface.

The strategic importance of the mobile address book as social network has not been lost on mobile operators. For example, T-Mobile’s myFaves plan allows you to call your five favorite people on any network for free. Alltel launched its My Circle plan, in which subscribers choose between five, 10 or 20 numbers to call for free.

By making it easy (and affordable) to stay connected to the people who matter most, these operators have successfully positioned themselves in the middle of their subscribers’ real social network. And if these limited “mini social networks” are sticky, imagine how strong the customer bond would be if the mobile operator were in the middle of the subscriber’s entire social network?

Operators are waking up to the coming battle for the address book and, more importantly, who will power it. Vodafone has already made an acquisition: Zyb. Partnering for innovation is essential.