TechPulse 360

Microsoft's KIN ONE social phone fits in the palm of a hand

This morning Microsoft revealed KIN, a Windows Phone designed specifically for the social generation of consumers, and with social networking (Facebook, Twitter…) built in the fabric of the phone.

Friends, friends and friends

“Their social life is their priority number one… People have as you heard thousands of ‘friends’ who are: 1) people they know, 2) famous people that they follow and 3) there’s maybe 10-15 people that they deeply care about. And those are different. And this whole idea of being socially connected with all of those groups was very powerful for these people. We call them ‘socialogist‘. And these social connections bring meaning to their live and that’s what they want to do everyday,” said Robbie Bach, the Microsoft president of its entertainment devices division (Xbox, Zune) at a launch event this morning in a bar in San Francisco.

Lifecasting from a phone

According to Bach, “self-expression” is super important for these socialogists.

“What they are, what they are doing. They want to share their journey everyday. It’s like constantly publishing a magazine of their life… On Facebook: 3 billion photos every month, 5 billion pieces of content shared every week. This is high volume. This is read all about me things that people are doing. And we call it lifecasting,” adds the Microsoft executive.

Bach then went to explain why Windows Phone 7 is just not suited for the socialogists who want to lifecast from their phone. And as Microsoft engineers were working on Windows Phone 7, they saw an opporunity to go after this specific target audience.

“So we took a small group of people (designers, business folks, engineers) and we said explore what you can do if you went specifically after these social group. What if we created something from the same design and the same core elements than Windows Phone 7 but customised uniquely for this audience around social communication.”

KIN vs. Windows Phone 7: amplify vs. simplify your life

Despite using the same Windows CE kernel, KIN phones are not compatible with upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices.

“Our strategy is really a cohesive focus around Windows Phone. Windows Phone 7 that will bring the multi-purpose phone for the broad audience to the marketplace later this Fall. And a new deeply social phone that will give for people what they want. Windows Phone 7 is about simplifying people’s lives, this social phone is about amplifying their life.”

KIN is designed to navigate your social life !

“[KIN] is a phone that knits together a community of kindred spirits whose lives are shared and who broadcast all the time from their phone. It’s a phone that personifies true kinship between people and technology, developers and customers.”

KIN is couture software. It’s hand-tailored, it’s custom fit for generation upload, for those sociologists that I talked about.