Mobile Social Networking
2008 in Review
An overview of trends
and developments in 2008
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Contents
• Definitions and basic principles
– As published in first edition of report
• Developments within and
surrounding mobile social
networking
– Growth drivers
– Feature evolution
– Growth metrics
– Emerging obstacles
– Emerging opportunities
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Mobile Social Networking
• All of the activities (verbs) and enabling elements
necessary for the contribution and consumption of social
media (UGC) across a mobile network
– All media types
– In addition to mobile-centric – Doesn’t include*
communities, includes • SMS
• Mobile flirt and chat rooms • Photo lockers/albums
• Some mobile IM services • Phone/address book
• Portion of PC-centric • Navigation
social media/community
*But these are “enablers” of differentiated
services accessed via community services when they are integrated within a
mobile network social networking platform. Such services can “spawn”
social networking features, in which case are included
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Mobile Social Networking (2)
• The key to the definition is the user’s
implicit or explicit choice of mobile
network technologies
to access the social facet
of their Digital Lifestyle
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Mobile Social Networking is NOT
• the form factor or manufacturer of the
device (terminal) chosen
• the type of media (text, images, video,
music, animations)
• the existence or lack of a prior relationship
• the distance or proximity
Think people
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A few contrasts
Mobile PC
Communities tend to focus on Communities designed for
one or few human needs general interest/multi-purpose
Immediate (it goes with user) Intermittent (user goes to it)
Across all socioeconomic strata People of “some means”
Moderation is critical to ecosystem Moderation is exception, not rule
This is their first/principle Internet access device This is their principle access,
mobile is “dumb down” version
Assumed connectivity/services billing relationship Assumption is that Web services
with NOTABLE regional differences in business are free, included with access
models: charges paid to an ISP
Western Europe, Japan and USA: post-pay
India, Latin America, Africa, ELSEWHERE: pre-pay
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Human Needs
and
Mobile Social
Networking
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Trends driving growth
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All drivers accelerated
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
Mobile Social Networking Report
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Social media “smart” handsets
• iPhone (3G and predecessors) and app Store
• Nokia and Ovi
– 5800 Xpress Music phone social networking UI
– More applications (Share on Ovi, FriendView)
• Android phone and Android Market
• Facebook phone INQ1
• More social apps written for Blackberry & Windows Mobile
• LG phones
– Integrated social networking clients apps
– 8 Megapixel camera
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Changing
Internet
• Social Web is here
• Major Web
(PC-centric)
communities
pushing mobile
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Mobile content/media
• Commercial/professional content
and properties
– Attract but do not retain
– High cost for small #s of mobile subs
• Mobile community services
emerging from
– Entertainment
– Sports
– News
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User Generated Content
• Enormous growth in every category
• More video
– Within community
• Mobile to mobile
– Mobile to PC
• Embedding video in pages
• MySpace video
– Streaming to mobile
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Network operators
• Vodafone
– Few announcements, acquired Zyb and Wayfinder
– “Many social networking initiatives cooking”
• Telefonica
– Announcements with large Web players
• Many not keeping up with pace of changes
• Mobile internet access performance variable
– particularly where flat rate is cheap
• Could be much better
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B2C and advertising
• Many companies have just begun to explore
direct dialog (community services) with
consumers, mobile is still distant
• Social media advertising
– Perceived by large brands as risky
– Rewards poorly understood/communicated
– Mobile social networking advertising is primarily local
– Highly variable cpm
• Causing some “drag” on the revenue growth
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Digital/mobile natives
• Their number is rising, and their
mobile services are indispensible
(compared to fixed line for voice)
• Global economic recession
– Depressing disposable income for
families, entertainment
– Lower rate of handset replacement
• Free access and advertising
sponsored services are key to
maintaining the growth in this
segment’s participation
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Evolution of features
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Ease of Use
• Single sign-on becoming more prevalent
• Simpler interfaces
– Remains room for improvement
• Higher integration
– With handset (in some cases) and/or
– Operator portals
– Application (media player) integration still lags
• “One-button” multi-community gateways
– Alerts/notifications
– Social media publishing
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3rd generation
• 3rd Gen of Mobile Social Networking
– Advances across the industry
– Not all features for all communities
• New feature sets may include
– Location-awareness (many variations on this theme)
– Presence
• Ability to hide yourself/mask presence
– Asynchronous video conversations
– Multipoint audio chat conversation
– Multiplayer mobile gaming
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Growth metrics
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Mobile community proliferation
• Number of operator-based
(on-deck) mobile
community services has
doubled in 2 years
• Number of independently-
operated mobile
communities exceeds 200
by the end of 2008
2005 2006 2007 2008
Source: PEREY Research & Consulting
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Mobile community user types
• Mobile user segments becoming Creators
more
distinguishable Critics
Getting
more
prolific
Mobile
community
Collectors
user types
Forrester’s
social web Growing
Joiners
user virally
segments
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All metrics show strong growth
• Registered users
– New registrations/month
• Active users (1 or more visit/month)
• Time engaged/visit
• Pages viewed
• Comments/messages posted
• Photos and videos contributed and viewed
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Mobile subscribers and total global
mobile community registrations
160
• By the end of 2008, 3.5%
of world mobile subscribers 140
(approx 100M) are using 120
mobile social networks 100
• Each subscriber has 80
registered with an average
60
of 1.45 communities
40
20
0
2006 2007 2008
Source: PEREY Research & Consulting
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Mobile Social Networking Revenues
• Depending on the country 6
and the service, an active
mobile community 5
participant generates
4
between $2/month and
$7/month to the partners 3
US$B
in the services ecosystem
• Globally, user paid 2
portion of these revenues 1
exceeds the corporate
paid contribution to the 0
total monthly bottom line 2006 2007 2008
Source: PEREY Research & Consulting
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Persistent obstacle: Cost
• Mobile data tariffs
– Flat rate data
• Highly variable with and across geographies
• Where available, sometimes prohibitively high
• Roaming data tariffs
– Most subscribers are pre-pay
• Unknown costs
– Cost of data remains mysterious (for most)
– Roaming data (full of surprises)
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Persistent obstacle: Silos
• Isolated communities
arise due to
– Mobile networks
– Community platforms
– Business models
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Emerging obstacles
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Confusion
• Community choices difficult to
navigate/differentiate
– For all ecosystem players
including end users/participants
• Data storage vs data portability
• Merge mobile community traffic
– Invitations
– Alerts/notifications
• Each community receives
fraction of user’s total
attention/mind-share
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Complexity
• Some mobile social
networking services are
approaching transition
point
• Complexity is only
justified when it simplifies
the user experience
(when it contributes to
ease of use)
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Quality of experience
As network load from data users increases on
fixed capacity, service reliability is at risk
Quality of user experience declines due to
temporarily overloaded mobile networks then
recovers, then declines….
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Emerging opportunities
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Context and communities
• Location, yes, but not just location!
• Contextual services leveraging
Time
– GPS and other sensors
Location Capabilities
• In the environment (my network,
my handset)
• In the handset-rapid proliferation Direction
of these in 2008 of travel User
Prefer-
– Personal area networks Proximity to ences
people and
– Histories places of
interest
Status
• Individual-accumulating in 2008
• Group
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Location-driven experiences
See the locations or patterns of others
– Provides live human “heat maps”
Browse
places which
friends have
tagged
CitySense
and rated
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Deeper and adaptive experiences
• Integration between
real and digital worlds
• Personal memory
– Storage and retrieval
• Using mobile in conjunction with fixed
– Connect over mobile, use large displays
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Mobile Social Networking
Communities and Content on the Move
Second Edition of the report published by
in February 2009
Christine Perey
cperey@perey.com
+41 79 436 68 69
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