Hearts, minds and the mobile address book

I work with a new company called Skydeck that has a different approach to the market. Skydeck combines subscribers’ address books (from Gmail, Outlook, Plaxo or Yahoo!) with their call records to map their real social network: the people they actually call and text most often. Skydeck helps users keep track of their networks and all their mobile calls and text messages with a Gmail-like Web interface — and is a precursor of things to come.

How strong are the challengers and how big the stakes? The leading social-networking sites are as big or bigger than any domestic mobile operator, are growing faster, have repeatedly demonstrated innovation and virality, and have captured the hearts, minds and eyeballs of the most prized demographic: the affluent, educated, Internet-savvy 18-34 year olds that operators are relying on for growth.

Today, mobile operators are well-positioned in the middle of their subscribers’ real social networks. The power, reach and innovation of the leading social networks and their community of developers could be the mobile network operators’ biggest challenge, or opportunity, in the battle over the “social utility” that is the mobile address book.