Forum Moderators: rogerd
9.6% of mobile users were connecting to a social network as of October 2008, compared to 3.4% in September 2007. The rapid growth is due in part to the small base of people who are social networking on mobile.By 2012, eMarketer projects that more than 800 million users worldwide will participate in social networks via their mobile device, up from 82 million in 2007.
MediaPostNews [mediapost.com]
The research results were based on online surveys completed by 512 U.S. mobile subscribers ages 18 and over.
I really want to know the breakdown of the age group. 18 and over doesn't give me much to go on.
I can tell you that my own experiences browsing the mobile web were less than satisfactory. I see a lot of catching up to do from the standpoint of serving web content for mobile devices. Most of the sites I visited on my mobile failed somewhat miserably and about the only thing I could do was browse.
I've since canned my mobile phone for anything other than telephone calls. My eyes are not what they used to be. I haven't succumbed to contacts yet. Even then, mobile displays are way too small to do anything other than browse. That is just my opinion though and I'm surrounded by the mobile crowd. Bunch of geeks if you ask me...
Jitterbug here I come. In the interim, my new Juke is serving its purpose which is for telephone calls only and maybe some tunes every now and then. ;)
Ever try using one of those Social Media sites that weighs in over 500k per page? It is not a pleasant experience! And most of them seem to love that 500k+ page size.
When a passenger from the crashed plane in Denver rolls off of the escape chute and tweets about it while he watches the plane burn...well that's a scoop you probably couldn't make with a laptop because you hopefully left it on the plane.
It's not JUST about the browser...
I use facebook to keep track of what my friends are doing and to share what I'm doing- my iPhone's always in my pocket, with the facebook app I can snap a pic, tag whoever's in it and share it with the world- or just update my status and browse my news feed.
It's only going to grow from here- I'm excited to see where it goes!
I use facebook to keep track of what my friends are doing and to share what I'm doing - my iPhone's always in my pocket
?
?
I guess and do hope that one of the questions in that question mark is this:
Do we really need to keep track of what friends are doing on minute to minute basis?
I agree that the number is growing but a large part of the growth has to be due to the fact that a lot of people (kids) who enjoy MySpace like sites are getting their own phones to be "just like everyone else".
One of those kids couldn't have been older than 8 so from a marketing standpoint the increase means little in the way of increased earning potential... until 8 year olds get credit cards too.
Many network providers have entered into agreements with social media/network sites that make it very easy for users to access their content. In many cases the site in question may be an icon within the phones user interface. Not only is this good for the market by pushing users towards it, it is also very lucrative for the phone companies.
Mack.
8 year olds wield considerable purchasing power via their parents.
I use facebook to keep track of what my friends are doing and to share what I'm doing- my iPhone's always in my pocket, with the facebook app I can snap a pic, tag whoever's in it and share it with the world- or just update my status and browse my news feed.It's only going to grow from here- I'm excited to see where it goes!
I'm depressed to see how creepy the future will be. I have a Facebook but I could care less what everyone's doing and I'm not so full of myself to share what I'm doing 24/7. It's nice for contact info...in case someone needs to get a hold of me. Other than that, no thanks.
The research results were based on online surveys completed by 512 U.S. mobile subscribers ages 18 and over.
I really want to know the breakdown of the age group. 18 and over doesn't give me much to go on.
They are making outrageous claims for such a tiny sample; subdivide it any more, and you'd almost be able to say "53 people in the 25-34 age group may or may not have accessed MyFace / SpaceBook / MyBook / FaceSpace / Whatever, via their mobiles" ;)
But for those of us who don't have go-to sites for scores or stock quotes or social media, what do we do about the mobile web? Our solution was to build a scaled-down mobile version of our content site and parse the user agent to send the appropriate users that way. It hasn't gone so well, as we've had to deal with duplicate content issues, and most people are now using devices that prefer the wide version of sites like ours. Revenue on the mobile site is a pittance.
The smart money seems to be abandoning little phones and building iPhone Apps, which is probably our next step. Would like to hear how you guys are handling this.
That's what... nearly 1 out of every 8 people alive today?
Seems high to me.
