Social networks have changed the way people communicate with each other. This change has drastic implication to the design of the mobile phone.

Phone manufacturers are beginning to develop wireless devices that cater to the needs of specific audience niches, like social communicators. INQ Mobile has created a phone tied to networks such as Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger and Motorola is developing a social phone based on the Android platform.

They might be the forerunners, but eventually all phones will need to integrate this new functionality into their address book design (beyond simply adding a mobile social network application). These are some of the implication for these social phones:

More contacts and more communication options

You can consider your social graph as a series of concentric circles. You are in the center and the people you communicate with on a daily or weekly basis are visualized as your inner circle. The immediate band around that are your Friends and Coworkers. The contact information for this group of people has traditionally been stored in your address book on the phone. The typical communication with this group is phone calls, SMS and emails.

The social network bands consist of Social Network “Friends” and Friends of Friends. The first group contains people that you frequently communicate with, but you might never give them a call. Example communication in this group is through asynchronous status updates, comments or photos. Communication with the last group of people, friends of friends is also different; for example you might exchange more generic questions and answers with this group of people.

It is likely that people in the narrower circles are also part of the wider circles, so communication with friends and coworker often includes social network information.

Different information around your contacts
The type and amount of information and activities around “friends” within my social network changes and increases drastically. Where I traditionally would have the choice to call or SMS Joe, now I can find out where Joe is, or who he knows.

Change to the contact List
The design of the contact list on mobile phones will have to change to accommodate for how people are currently interacting with each other. The contact list needs to allow users to determine what the best way is to communicate with someone at a certain moment. It needs to provide both static as well as dynamic information around your contacts from disparate sources. Sometimes it needs to behave like an inbox and sometimes like a phonebook.

Micro blogging

The above examples are about communication with people within my social circle. Blogging allows people to communicate to those beyond that group as well. The trend of Micro Blogging (blogs around brief messages or photos) is specifically well suited for mobile use. This social trend requires more emphasis on a good content generation and editing experience on a mobile device.

These are only a couple of examples of what might change for mobile phones when manufacturers and carriers embrace the way users communicate now.