Mobile Social Networking Patent Sells for $2.6 million at Live Auction, Why You Should Care

People far smarter than I have declared that the future of social networking is in three places:

1. Social networks that cater to niches.
2. Social networks that act as a hub for people’s many disparate social networking accounts.
3. Mobile social networking.

The third category heated up yesterday when the patent for some key components of mobile social networking sold for $2.6 million.

I did a bit of research into some of the beta social networks out there and had a lot of fun with Socialight. Basically, it uses your phone’s GPS to find out where you are, then it tells you information about locations near you. I quickly joined and geotagged a number of my favorite restaurants, complete with my menu preferences for each.

If you’re a business owner with any kind of a storefront, sites like this matter tremendously to you. Just look at this listing for Huling Brothers auto dealership. Apparently, the store once scammed a mentally disabled man. If you’re a socialight user and your phone beeps with that information when you get in range of Huling Brothers, are you going to want to shop for a car there?

This is very similar to the wine bottle story that John Battelle told in his book The Search. In that instance, a person can find out what her friends thought about a particular vintage and where in the area she might be able to buy it for cheaper just by scanning the bottle’s bar code with her mobile phone.

The importance of these variants on mobile social networking and opinion sharing will only grow for your customers over the next five years. And unlike a number of online services that aim to do the same thing, they’re impossible to game. These networks enable people to listen only to their friends or other people whose opinions they have come to trust. If you post a recommendation for your own restaurant, not too many people are going to pay attention.