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Hatef Yamini 8 min read

Mobile Social Networks Get a Boost

In the world of social networks, the end of 2006 represented a major milestone: MySpace went mobile! The deal between MySpace and Cingular was announced on December 18th when the service went live.  With more than 130 million user profiles on record, MySpace’s announcement gave a major boost to the larger trend of social networks going mobile. The new service allows users to make blog entries and comments, send and receive emails via their MySpace page, upload photos from their cellphones, and view or search for friends (videos will be supported sometime in 2007).

Hard on the heels of the MySpace/Cingular announcement, ABIresearch published the results of their latest research into mobile social networks. The study concluded that by 2011 the mobile social networking population will reach 170 million, up from today’s 50 million.  Since the ABI research preceded the MySpace announcement, we may see even faster growth.

Let’s consider some of the implications of increased mobile social networking to online communications and advocacy:

1) We have to expand our definition of “on-line.”  Whereas Web 1.0 had a PC centric approach, Web 2.0 blurs the on-line/off-line boundary by extending network access to PDAs and cellular phones.  In other words, if electronic messages can reach it, it's on-line.

2) Make it simple.  According to the ABI study, the current bottle neck to mobile social networks in the US is the lack of operators to sponsor them.  Currently, it is not easy for a subscriber to get a new phone and join a social network.  That’s going to change rapidly as third party vendors enter the market.

3) Tailor the message for a mobile world.  While traditional e-mail continues to be a successful tool, we have to prepare to supplement it with SMS, which is for all intents and purposes the mobile equivalent of e-mail, albeit shorter. But even e-mail is changing. Business people, for example, now read more of their e-mail on their mobile devices than on their computers.  As for SMS and Instant Messaging, a recent AP-AOL study released on December 11th, showed that teenagers who use IM use it more than e-mail.  Adults aren’t far behind: about a quarter of adults who use IM use it more than e-mail and half of all adults use IM.  With these kinds of numbers, it’s no wonder ABI’s VP is so convinced:

"The rapid rise of online social communities - gathering places such as MySpace and Facebook - has done more than bring the 'pen pal' concept into the 21st century. It has created a new paradigm for personal networking. In a logical progression, many social communities are now based on the mobile phone and other portable wireless devices instead of (or as well as) the PC. Such mobile social communities extend the reach of electronic social interaction to millions of people who don't have regular or easy access to computers."

--Clint Wheelock, Vice President of Research, ABIresearch.

4) Location will matter, again.  A mobile community member’s location can be used to organize off-line events.  For example, Boost Mobile takes an interesting social mapping approach that uses GPS technology to find friends and build networks. One of the features touted by Boost is the ability to set up an event, send invitations to your friends list, receive R.S.V.P.s, and map the location of the event relative to each friend. Amazingly, all this is done on a regular cell phone!

5) Expect costs to decrease.  As third party providers like Boost Loopt and MySpace increase service offerings, the costs associated with mobile campaigns will come down as competition increases and economies of scale tip in favor of reduced cost.  This could finally make online fundraising a success.

6) If you thought video was big, you haven’t seen anything yet.  Along with the increased use of SMS and mobile e-mail, people are sharing photos and video files. Audio/visual content and video in particular is rapidly moving to the mobile space as the number of video service providers increase and bandwidth reaches 3G capacity.  Already, phones with photo and video recording capability are allowing the exchange of multi-media messages, causing some people to predict that YouTube will one day surpass MySpace in membership.  I should also note that it’s not just new-media outlets that are embrasing mobile media.  Major traditional outlets like ABC/AOL already support citizen supplied video journalism.

At Frogloop, we'll continue to track the developments in this exciting space. If you're using mobile communication, please share your story here.

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