Fringers Taste the Fruits of Fring’s Open API

If you've been lingering around Profy for a while, you might recall that I recently covered the mobile social platform Fring along with others like Xumii.  You might also recall that Fring opened its API to developers interested in designing mobile social applications.  Just a few weeks since that announcement, developers have already delivered two heavy-hitting applications to the Fring community.

That's right, merely weeks after announcing the release of its API to developers, Fring has landed applications for Facebook, Orkut, Gmail and vTap. Man, whatever designers created those applications should be given awards for being quite speedy in the development and release stages!  To be honest, when Fring opened its API, I visited the site and noted that there were already plans to integrate Facebook and Orkut even before the official API announcement.  

Regardless, "Fringers" as the press release called them, now can perform many of the tasks like messaging, updating statuses and sharing media on the two social platforms remotely on their cell phones.  That should certainly garner a few users.

Even with the additions of Facebook and Orkut support (no, I didn't forget Gmail), I'm still lukewarm to the idea of a mobile community like Fring while there are mobile social aggregators like Xumii and Jibe delivering a more streamlined approach to mobile social living.  Aggregators will be the name of the game, and individual social communities that "support" other platforms will really need to shine to succeed. 

The reason for this is that the more social communities are created, the more diluted each platform will become.  Think about it — aside from the big communities like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Youtube, FriendFeed (to a lesser extent) and a few choice others, what platforms really show the huge adoption numbers necessary to stay afloat?  In the mobile social world, the mix will be even more diluted.

Providers are all gearing up to deliver their own social platforms, companies like Fring, amongst others, are offering their own variety of mobile platform, and what will you end up with?  All of your friends will scatter across a bevy of platforms, and that kills the whole reason to join a social community in the first place.

The next logical conclusion, just like what's being demonstrated right now by social aggregators, is that users will need a community that can run a feed of all your accounts on different platforms (because your friends can't all get together on a single platform) into one single and streamlined location.   And here we are, back at my original point that mobile social aggregators are the way to go.

That isn't to say that Fring won't be successful.  Consider this, though:  if Fring really is successful, do you want to have an entire application on your phone dedicated to the Fring community, or do you want an all-encompassing aggregator that includes Fring support for the most used tasks?  Either way, you will end up at a point where you're looking to remain up to speed on your many different platforms, not lock yourself into one limited community with half-baked support for one or two of your favorites.  

It's also worth pointing out that many people aren't so hooked on their cell phones that they want to keep their eyes glued on their handsets day-long for each and every update in their social community.  Users want friend updates, want to occasionally update their own accounts, and to perform quick tasks to keep themselves linked in.  That isn't necessarily the case for computer-based platforms and aggregators; I don't like FriendFeed because it is limited in its ability to interact with platforms beyond receiving updates.  However, that would be a fantastic mobile solution, with a few tweaks to account updates.  

If Fring can be successful, more power to 'em.  When that time comes, you find me a mobile aggregator with support for Fring, and I'll jump on board.