Mele’s Musings

Jumpstarting the Mobile Internet

Phones are primarily communication devices. So is social networking. Will the combination of the two finally make mobile internet explode in the US?

photo: facereviews.com

Article excerpt: Is social networking the key? Mobile social networking stands a good chance of jumpstarting mobile Internet adoption because mobile social networking is based more on communication than content. Time and again, communication services have led the way for content and advertising to follow. In the case of the Internet, it was e-mail and discussion boards—not Web pages—that triggered the explosion from early adoption to mainstream consumer use. SMS services drove mobile data use and they still account for the majority of mobile data revenues by carriers. It is not surprising, therefore, that mobile carriers and mobile content providers have warmed to mobile social networking as a new opportunity to ramp mobile Internet use. In truth, they have little choice. Their attempts to convince the mass market to sign up for mobile Internet have proved moderately successful, at best.
the rest: emarketer.com

Musing: Mobile social already exists – the number of text messages sent each day via mobile phones is proof of that. As people seek to not only communicate one on one, but en masse, the value of mobile social can only grow. People don’t want to be tethered to their PC to keep people up to date on what they are doing – they want to update their pages and their profiles anytime and anywhere. It will allow them to be more efficient and more connected. The nature of social on mobile will be different than it is on the internet, though – it will be less deep, and less time-consuming. It will have to be for it to really make it.