Doing less the good way
We often get the question or remark that Soocial is pretty ok, but actually more a feature than a sustainable business. Basically the question is whether Soocial is “just” an aspect of a product or if it can be a product itself. Compared to other products like Apple’s MobileMe and myFunambol our product offering is ‘less’, at least in regards to the amount of features. However Soocial has an important added value that is inherent to the fact that we do less: we have to play well with others. And playing well with others is going to be very very important to solve the address book problem.
Soocial: product or feature
The ‘slimness’ of Soocial is a good thing – even a competitive advantage over similar products. This is the reason comparable products haven’t got it right, because they considered contact management as “just” a feature. The raison d’être of Soocial is in getting the address book right – that is our innovation.
The idea of Soocial is that we do contacts – and do it right – then play well with others. Plugging in easily into existing sites thus taking the burden of handling contacts away. Let contact management be our headache not yours. That is the core of Soocial’s narrow focus and added value. Compare it to Amazon Web Services and SaaS.
Keep it clean
So if Soocial is a product then what are the features? Syncing, Backing-up, Sharing, Cleaning, Merging and Organizing contacts – and doing it right – is an immense value that internet users need. In short choosing a narrow product focus allows us to solve the problem at a much deeper level.
Part of Soocial’s value proposition is helping users clean their address books, providing some sort of ‘magic’ that helps keep contacts sane. Things like auto cleaning, deduping and formatting your phone numbers in human friendly ways are all things offer added value. These features will compete head-to-head in a qualitative sense with MobileMe and Funambol in regards to their contact syncing features.
What of MobileMe or Funambol?
Both MobileMe and myFunambol are good products or have the potential to be, I don’t mean to knock them. However there is also a problem they need to face, that has not been addressed yet.
A quick example: What if you want calendar and push email syncing of MobileMe but keep storing your photo’s in Flickr, not MobileMe? Even though there will undoubtedly be linking tools between MobileMe and Flickr, it is still a drag to have two places for your photos or to have to choose between them.
Interoperability is the key.
Both products offer more syncing features: contacts, calendar, notes, push email and (in case of MobileMe) photos. But both products will also be harder to use in combination with other similar offerings. Soocial doing less means we must do that better, we must offer a better contact management experience. However it also means there is more room for others. This is especially true for data like contacts which is used so often and in such a wide variety of places. Interoperability is going to be a very important aspect of solving the address book problem.
Hey, Soocial guys, keep up the good work. But ...
"Compare it to Amazon Web Services."
Well Amazon Web Services is a platform, Soocial is a service.
Just been to mF and their site doesn't work with Safari apparently!
@Erwin: I would beg to differ that it is the other way round. Soocial is aiming to create a platform where your contacts are held, exchanged, shared with others. AWS is a service in that it serves their customers directly not providing eco system of interaction between customers.
Interesting point and food for more thought and writings. Thanks. ;-)
and how do you look at Plaxo - also aiming (at least aimed) as being an intelligent contact's hub? (although they currently doesn't provide syncml which is very native to many phones)
@naor: I see Plaxo as the same as MobileMe and Funambol - they do more in a bad way. Plaxo could have been the default contact platform but for various reasons has not achieved that - perhaps doing 'too much'?. In additional they have move into the Social networking space with Pulse - so doing even more. Although I can understand their motives I think focus in the contact management space is the only way to solve the problem correctly.
I agree Soocial has the potential to become a platform. However it then needs to be possible to seamlessly integrate soocial in other web products (such as ours, Nulaz), in a way that the end users don't know they are using Soocial (and at least don't need to login twice, etc). Until that's the case, we are 'forced' to build some similar functions ourselves, something I would rather not focus on.
@Panman: Very true and valid points. This is exactly the sort of thing that Soocial aims to become -> an easier solution than redo-ing it yourself.
This includes creating transparent ways of using Soocial - using OAuth it is possible already to create transparently users/devices and get contacts.
If Soocial ever launches a social network like Pulse, I'm outta here.
@Pat Hawks: hehe ;-) I hear you loud 'n clear - and I agree with you loud 'n clear. We don't want to be a social network or aggregate social networks like that.
Focus is the key that will helps us get the right interoperability to finally solve the address book problem. Aggregation of network data is not where we want to go.
@Spif, thnx for your answer, it reflects exactly what I wrote to plaxo a couple of months ago. I've been using them as my central hub, even paid, but they are loosing the focus. I've started with soocial, currently syncing my mac, and waiting for the partial sync (groups) to add my phone. I really need this "contacts backbone" :)
The difference between MobileMe/Plaxo/MyFunamobl vs Soocial: They are in the market now filling the need and are backed by BIG cash. Granted they are square pegs in round holes, but they are still there.
Unfortunately, if Soocial don't get to market soon, they'll miss out on a set of discerning users who have locked themselves into other services with time investment.
Personally I am disappointed that it is Apple making it to market first with a quality offering (regardless of the provider lock-in).
@Toni Good points, and although time-to-market is important it is more important to finally solve the address book problem correctly. MobileMe is a few days out and keen to see how they perform - Plaxo and Funambol have not been able to solve the contact problem yet.
However IMO interoperability will prove to be the killer feature - one that allows to break the provide lock-in. For Soocial we already support OSX, Phones and webapps - this is something that MobileMe will not support - so in one sense we are already further ahead.