Skydeck - The True Mobile Social Network?
07/19/2008, 1 month ago
I think there are a lot of people who still point at the divide between someone's "social" life — that being the life they possess as a member of internet-based communities and networks — and "real" social life, saying the void can't be crossed. While we might not be at the point where our two social lives overlap seamlessly, there is still a lot of value in developing tools for understanding and enhancing our social life in the physical world.
One such tool that I stumbled on today is Skydeck. Skydeck is a platform that aggregates all of your activity on your mobile handset, including your outgoing and incoming calls, your call times, and your text messages. From that information you can see how your different contacts stack up to one another in relation to the amount of time you spend communicating with them.
Another advantage to using Skydeck is that it logs all your activity online, so you can see how many calls you've made, how many text messages you've sent, and what kind of fees you are accruing. If you can't remember or find that particular number that called you, you can check your records on Skydeck and find the missing information.
Skydeck also functions as an advanced and feature-rich address book. Based on the aggregation of your calls and messages, your contacts will be ranked in order of importance to you. You can record how you know your friends, and from what I can see in the preview, by adding address information, you'll receive a Google Maps image of your friends' locations.
You can also search your calls and texts with the search functionality available in Skydeck. Skydeck is compatible with Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
I applied immediately for a beta invite for this platform. I think a lot of people will be hesitant to adopt a platform like this because of the sensitive nature of the information being aggregated, but I think, considering the amount of time I spend using my mobile for various tasks, I could really use the features included with Skydeck.
If enough people were to adopt Skynet, I would really like to see a Skydeck community develop, where users can locate profiles of their friends and become friends on various internet-based social networks like Seesmic, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, and whatever else people like to use. That would be a fantastic next step for Skynet to consider. Now can I please have an invite?





Hi Triston
Great article on SkyDeck, I have followed them ever since James Whatley told me about how their CEO fought for developer access to mobile networks.
Jame’s comment on my site you can find here along with the video:
http://www.techwinter.com/2008/06/06/reporting-from-canada-the-question-today-is-is-canada-falling-behind/#comment-617944
It would be great Triston if you do get a chance to trial it long term if you could twitter me as I would have loved to have trialed their service too but alas I am in the UK and they as you mentioned don’t yet support networks outside the US.
Great writing by the way, Profy is (literally) the only site I read everyday. I like the Profy team’s content and think it is far superior to the A-Listers.
Ps You spelled SkyDeck, Skynet at the bottom..
Cheers
Roger
http://www.twitter.com/rogerkondrat
How about privacy issues with skydeck? I just feel if they have such detailed offline activity info plus basically everything about you online? is there not a risk in this?
Leicester
Fairplay really but in all honesty what is the difference between them and most other services? You use Facebook right? LinkedIn? How about a CRM database - ever been on someone’s? Do you use Google? YouTube?
There is so much data out there that is vulnerable and like most situations the more obvious the vulnerability (gov excluded) the more effort that is put into protecting it.
On top of all that there is Jason Devitt the CEO of SkyDeck’ image and I have to say he seems right on the ball and truly clued into trends, consumers and privacy. That for me is a big extra bonus and would incline me to trial just about anything he offers.