The Ultimate Social Network

It’s no surprise that text messaging is the most requested feature on mobile phones. In fact, the top 5 most popular features listed in a recent Amplitude Research survey are pretty understandable given the evolution of mobile technology in the past 5 years:

1. text messaging (73%)
2. camera (67%)
3. e-mail (63%)
4. Internet (61%)
5. music (34%)

But what’s missing on this list is the one feature that initiates all communications on the mobile device: the phone book. Without it, mobile phones would be an accessory, not an indispensable communication tool.

So why doesn’t the phone book appear on this list of must-haves? Most subscribers (and their mobile operators) view it as a standard mobile phone feature. No one would buy a phone without a place to store their contacts. Without easy access to people’s contact information, initiating a mobile call, SMS, e-mail, mobile IM chat or a mobile location-based service is a huge aggravation, if not impossible.

Despite its necessity, the phone book in its current incarnation doesn’t deliver much value to consumers or to mobile operators due to its severe limitations

New on the horizon is the social address book, which transforms the phone book on any standard mobile phone into a social networking platform that makes it easier for subscribers to exchange contact information.

When you think about it, our real social network is the people we meet and communicate with on a daily basis, not simply a list on a Website. The foundation of our social network is literally in the palm of our hands: our mobile phone book. Mobile operators are right in the middle of this real-world network

College Students' Social Networking

Many collegians are on daily.

Social networking is an everyday activity for the majority of college students, and the percentage of students who use the networks daily has nearly doubled in the past two years. EDUCAUSE compared social network usage at 44 colleges and universities in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It found that nearly twice as many students at these institutions use social networks every day in 2008 (59%) than did in 2006 (33%).

Source: emarketer.com

Social Networks Get Down to Business

Do business and socializing mix?

Apparently so. As the number of business users of social networks continues to increase, advertising expenditures will rise, too. In the US this year, advertisers will spend $40 million to reach a business audience on online social networks, and that is just the beginning. According to eMarketer projections, that ad spending will reach $210 million in 2012.

A clear sign of the revolution in business thinking and behavior is the popularity of LinkedIn—the most widely known professional social network—where the audience has more than doubled in the past year, and the rise of additional business-oriented networks, including a raft of networks aimed at verticals.

Source: emarketer.com