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Social Media Goes Mobile, Two
Reports Find
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By Enid
Burns | December 19, 2006
Social networking and
consumer generated media have moved beyond the PC.
Separate reports from M:Metrics and ABI Research show a
surge of social media activity via mobile handsets.
Users are primarily teens and college-age
students.
The audience, according to ABI
Research, is approaching 50 million members worldwide
and is expected to reach 174 million in 2011. "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," ABI
Research VP of Research Clint Wheelock said in a
statement. He called the trend "a new paradigm for
personal networking."
ABI Research sees
opportunities to monetize mobile social communities,
with fragmented payouts. Moneymakers in the space
include mobile operators who profit from the data usage
and often from monthly subscription fees. Opportunities
also exist for sponsorships of special interest
communities, such as a music forum recently underwritten
by MTV Asia.
On mobile social media platforms,
"advertising can be targeted to specific niches with
great accuracy," due to the medium's self-profiling
nature, the ABI report said.
M:Metrics found
while usage in the U.S. is slight, markets in Europe
exhibit higher adoption of mobile social media sites..
User-generated content, which includes photo messaging,
video messaging, IM, chat, dating and user-created
content including video content and ringtones, has a
reach of 70 percent among 13- to 17-year-olds.
"Much as teens were the early adopters of
PC-based social networking applications, they have
proven to be the innovators in the mobile arena," Paul
Goode, VP and senior analyst at M:Metrics, said in the
data release. Although teenagers and young adults make
up only 6 to 10 percent of mobile subscribers, they
generate more than their fair share of mobile
content."
Uptake of user-generated content and
social networking applications over mobile platforms is
highest in Italy, where 69.7 percent of 13- to
17-year-olds subscribe to such services. By contrast,
36.7 percent of teens subscribe or participate in the
U.S.
Communities like SMS.ac, airG , and Jumbuck
are starting to reach more subscribers, though the
largest volume of user-generated content is attributed
to phone-to-phone photo messaging. Photo sharing via
handsets is a regular activity adopted by 19.9 percent
of the U.S. teen market, versus 49.9 percent in Italy.
Good attributes higher adoption rates to 3G (define) service in Italy and other
European countries.
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