On the surface it seems remarkable that despite the ability to swap contact info using Bluetooth, many users will send a text message or swap missed calls and then save the numbers to the address book. Why is this? The simple answer is convenience. It is so easy to dial a number and save it to memory. Most phones have context-sensitive soft keys that will usually give the option of “save to address book” within one or two key presses if the phone doesn’t recognise the number. On the other hand, there is no equivalent for swapping numbers via Bluetooth, at least I haven’t come across one.

Bluetooth implementations remain one of the clumsiest areas of wireless technology imaginable. I still can’t fathom the Bluetooth utilities on my Dell laptop and it almost always takes me a seemingly endless number of mouse clicks and poking around in meaningless menus to transfer content from my mobile. It isn’t even clever enough to recognise that my previously bonded mobile is sitting nearby and might have new content on it ready for upload. It is a typical engineering afterthought of an implementation that no doubt made sense to someone who programmed it and tested it on his or herself. No wonder the Bluetooth symbol is made from ancient runes - this is clearly what we get much of the time. I wonder if we should coin the phrase Viking-ware for any technology that apparently promises so much, but remains strangely elusive in terms of accessibility.

I expect that NFC will save the day, or at least that’s my hope. Merely touching my phone against yours ought to bring up a menu of options, although no doubt there will be obscure Viking-ware options like “mate”. Of course, the boffin who programmed it will explain that he really meant “bond” which is what it says in the standard, but he felt that “mate” was more user friendly. Of course, there will be those who will think it a little too friendly - an invitation perhaps. In short, one would hope that the touching of two devices will circumvent the need firstly to search for connectable devices and secondly the need to grant permission to “bond”.

What we then need is a common format for initiating bonds in social networks (SN), so that I can, for example, elect to link my LinkedIn, Faceparty and other SN memberships to my “mobile touch”. Of course, we’ve been talking about these things for what seems like forever. I am no longer able to shake the groundhog-day feeling I get in nearly every meeting to do with mobile apps, so it must be getting nearer to fruition right? Well, I’m not going to hold my breath. Much of my time recently has been spent in the world of broadcasting, trying to figure out various “convergence” issues between IPTV, mobile and the kitchen sink. What strikes me is just how different industries can be, although beneath the surface they are solving similar problems. After all, mobile content, TV content - similar right? Wrong. For example, mention the word middleware to a broadcaster - if indeed they use that exact term - and their minds are somewhere totally different to an operator trying to manage an on-device portal. This, amongst other reasons, is why the whole notion of everything being the same “in an IP world” isn’t true.

I digress. The point is that the people who bring us things like Bluetooth and NFC aren’t necessarily on the same wavelength as the people who bring us FOAF and all those other social networking goodies. It has been my experience that this is nearly always the case. A common situation is getting excited about the amazing potential for combining two technologies in a seemingly obvious way only to find that the single most obvious feature to make it all happen isn’t supported. This is common enough within a single company, never mind across an industry, and think again across different industries. Technology remains dominated by technologists and engineers, with precious few people thinking about applications and even fewer architects capable of spanning the technological divides to bring us new solutions to real problems, like sharing address book entries.