In 2007, it’s a MySpace world. Everywhere you go and everything you hear about is MySpace this, and MySpace that. 80 million or so registered users have a way of wielding their power. It’s no wonder that this social networking juggernaut is now teaming up with the wireless companies.
MySpace officially partnered with Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone service provider in April 2006. If you have a MySpace account, you can get short text messages sent to you when new comments or friend requests get posted to your MySpace profile.
MySpace is planning to make its mobile features available through all major U.S. carriers soon. Wireless startup Helio began offering phones preloaded with MySpace capabilities. Users can view profiles of friends and post comments and photos directly onto MySpace.
The goal of MySpace? To make its mobile applications a preloaded feature on all mobile phones in the world.
In fact, cell phones everywhere are dialing in to the top social networking sites.
Here’s what some of the other top social networking sites are doing:
Social networks such as Rabble, CoolTalk, and The Facebook are also being hosted by Cingular.
• Dodgeball, owned by Google, allows users to text their location and are notified of friends or hotspot venues close by. How do they pull this one off? Through the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) that most phones have.
• Flickr has partnered with Nokia, allowing users to post photos shot with their Nokia mobile multimedia phones onto the Flickr site instantly.
Other important details:
• Cingular wants to host as many social networks as they can.
Mobile phone service providers will make out well with wireless social networking. Why? They charge $5 or more a month for Web time. 200+ minutes a month is the average time MySpace users spend.
• What about the good old personal computer? Well, for the socially networked twenty something, its all about the cell phone. They are moving, busy doing things, out and about. The cell phone is easier to use with a fast paced lifestyle. Use a cell phone to send pictures, videos and email in a flash.
Over 30% of young Americans are already using their mobile phones to post photos to the web sites.
For those who think that this new trend is a perfect storm, guess again. Mobile social networks aren’t problem free yet. It’s hard to type on mobile phones. Plus, there aren’t a lot of features to use yet. But, that will change in time.
How big could mobile social networking become? Very big.
The time has come and the market is ready.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Robin Meyer
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