JediMom Blog

Last week, I attended a Mother’s Day Tea at my son’s preschool. In preparation for the day, my son had been asked the question, “What’s in mommy’s purse?” My son’s answer was a “cell phone” and “snacks.” Snacks is a no-brainer for any mom. But the cell phone answer made me think. Other moms were tagged with things like gum and lipstick. When did my cell phone and I become so linked?

I do not have a “smart phone.” In fact, the pathetic user interface of my current phone makes it one of the dumbest devices I own. Despite this love-hate relationship, my usage continues to grow. Like a number of people, I’m finding that it’s pretty hard to be completely unwired. A recent survey released by eMarketer predicts that use of social networking services via mobile devices will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

I’m betting a nice demographic slice of those users will be teens, tweens and moms. The device in my purse has changed the way my family communicates. I send my husband text messages with honey-dos, grocery lists and my location when we’re separated in the mall. My daughter is trying to convince me that a cell phone is required for middle school.

Social networking sites are migrating to the mobile platform. With my current dumb phone, it’s just too frustrating to use mobile enabled versions of social networking sites like Facebook. But I’m able to Twitter to my account via SMS. I’m also testing a new social media service called Brightkite that is really tied to the cell phone. Brightkite allows you to tell your friends your current location, post text or pictures tagged with the location, find your friends’ location on the map and see other Brightkite users currently in your immediate area. The service has levels of privacy settings. If you want to give Brightkite a whirl, I have a handful of invites. Just leave a comment here or send me a message on twitter @naturalwoman.

Since my cell phone is now a legitimate accessory in my son’s eyes, I really need to upgrade. Please let me know if you have a recommendation for a mobile phone that can keep up with a busy mom’s social networking on the Sprint network.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.