Abe asks why moblogging isn’t hot in the Philippines? This was one of the questions raised during iBlog 3. Jayvee says it’s a pricing issue, I say it’s a usability issue. Abe says that it’s disinterest in blogging in general and he’s probably right. But the points he raised answer the “why aren’t you blogging” and not “why aren’t you moblogging”. We can’t expect non-bloggers to all of a sudden start moblogging; they have to start blogging first before we can even go ask them to do something exotic like moblogging.
I think the better question to ask is why isn’t mobile blogging hot with Filipino bloggers.
If you ask that question to Filipino bloggers, the pricing and usability reasons might come up as the top 2 reasons for moblogging’s slow adoption. I’ll just tackle the usability aspect since pricing is pretty straightforward.
If blogging involves reading/reacting to another story on a different site, quoting snippets from it, then inserting links, images and trackbacks, then mobile blogging would indeed be a bitch. Imagine switching tabs, copy pasting text from one page to another, adding links to words, uploading files, etc. on a very small screen, with Kryptonian interface controls. Even on a Treo 750, I just can’t imagine how they can make story hunting/browsing and typing usable enough. That’s why I always shut off all the mobile search evangelists out there. Sure, I can see the utility/novelty. But please consider the interface. If it’s not usable from a usability standpoint, adoption will indeed be slooooow. If I can do a task effectively on a mobile phone with just the use of one thumb, that’ll probably be the only time I can say it’s usable. And that’s probably the only time I’ll consider using my phone to blog, search and browse.
The argument that Twitter is a moblogging killer app candidate actually has merit. The only problem is that Twittering isn’t exactly blogging and Twitters are US-based Web 2.0 freaks who 1) spend more time in front of a computer than the mobile phone screen so there’s really no impetus to select the smaller screen and 2) you really can’t use your phone to blog much while driving unless you want to get pulled over. Now if there was a Twitter-like mobile photo application that would ride on people’s desire to know who you’re visually with right now, that would probably be killer (oh wait, isn’t this Flickr). Such an application would enable a mobile person to 1) take a snapshot and 2) upload the photo and some text to a site (or widgetized on his blog). The only problem is, unless you’re somebody who’s constantly in contact with celebrities, people won’t really give a fuck 1) who you are and 2) who you’re with.
Perhaps moblogging is just too big a dream for so small a screen.
PS There’s also an adult business model version for the mobile photo application but that’s reserved for the next beercon :)