Social Networks Should Be Built For Mobile
22 January 2008“Mobile by its very nature is social,” said SP. So, it’s no surprise
that CES devoted time to address the issue of UGC and social
networks. The market has been shifting with sites like Facebook and
MySpace branching out to mobile networks, but “things are very
fragmented,” said Jon Mantell, director of video services for Helio,
a mobile phone service provider.
Between the carriers, hardware, software and applications,
compatibility and aesthetics are two things hard to come by. When it
comes to handsets, “Apple changed the whole market completely,” said
Shane Lennon, SVP of strategy and marketing at GyPSii, a mobile
location-based relevant content service, adding that Google will
“take [change] further into the market” by possibly giving away them
away for free.
When it comes to the applications themselves, “social networks have
to be built for the mobile,” said Mei Lin Ng, co-founder of Mig33, a
mobile social site now based in the US. Mig33 has designed a service
for the mobile itself, and even though the service supports
messaging services like AIM and MSN, it sees 70% of messages sent
through its own network. Applications designed specifically for ease
of use on mobiles have an inherent advantage.
When it comes to these networks, Norman Liang, part of Nokia’s
business development team in Forum Nokia, said that advertisers and
the networks themselves, to “overcome fragmentation” and “get user
loyalty to a brand”, need cross-platform advertising models. Origin
Digital, represented by its CEO Darcy Lorincz, has about 800
partners, and sees by far the most success in cross-platform models
with campaigns designed specifically for mobiles. Liang said,
“Collaboration is the name of the game.”
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