Hot Topic: Social Networking for the iPhone

Real-time, location-based mobile social networking for the iPhone--iPling's sweet spot--is a hot topic in the blogosphere. Michael Arrington kicked things off with a TechCrunch post yesterday hypothesizing that the iPhone's cult following makes it an ideal platform for a social network. "I think an iPhone-only social network, if it had the right features, would be a huge hit with these users," Arrington says.

He specifically calls out the importance of a location feature in a mobile network, plus the ability to detect and connect not only with friends but with others nearby whom you might want to meet. "The goal here isn’t just to let users see where their friends are and what they are up to. The killer app is to facilitate meeting new people," he argues.

Arrington continues, "whoever gets there first will have a far more valuable asset than the existing networks at MySpace and Facebook today."

Arrington's post spawned another discussion today in Philip Elmer-DeWitt's Apple 2.0 blog on Fortune.com. Titled "The iPhone’s secret blindspot, revisited," it claims "Apple (AAPL) missed a huge opportunity with the original iPhone because, at a fundamental level, Steve Jobs doesn’t understand social networks."

As of the time of this post the TechCrunch and Fortune discussions combined had attracted more than 200 comments. It's exciting to see such spirited debate around the core insights that motivated us to create iPling. While others chatter we hustled to put a product out in the market so people could try it and we could start learning how to make it better. Trial and iteration are the heart of innovation online.