mi-space

Mobile Social Networking Gains Momentum

2008-05-27T15:50:11+01:00

A growing number of global mobile phone users are accessing social networks over the mobile internet, according to research from Nielsen Mobile. The UK leads Europe with 812,000 - or 1.7 percent of UK mobile subscribers - who visited social networking websites on their mobile phones per month in the first quarter of 2008.

http://www.marketingvox.com/mobile-social-networking-starting-to-gain-momentum-038486/?camp=newsletter&src=mv&type=textlink

Other findings issued by Nielsen:

In the US, MySpace.com, the leading social networking site among PC users, is also the most popular mobile internet social networking site. The site logged 2.8 million unique mobile users in December 2007.
Also in December, Facebook, which has the second-largest audience among social networking sites, had 1.8 million unique mobile users.
In contrast, Facebook led mobile social networking sites in the UK with 557,000 unique mobile users per month in 1Q08, while MySpace followed with 211,000 unique mobile users.
While Facebook and MySpace.com were also among the top social networking sites in other European countries during the first quarter of 2008, MSN's Windows Live Spaces led in Italy (154,000 unique mobile users per month) and France (106,000), and ranked second in Germany (45,000).
"Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and going mobile is the next big thing," said Jeff Herrmann, vice-president of Mobile Media at Nielsen Mobile. "In the UK and the US especially, we already see millions of users of MySpace.com, Facebook and other social networks interacting with their virtual spaces while they're on the go."

"Consumer demand for mobile social networking may be a significant driver of mobile service pricing models, as evidenced by Vodafone UK's recent move to offer unlimited internet access as a standard feature of its new monthly mobile price plans," he added.

Social Networking Ad Spending Update

2008-05-19T14:00:21+01:00

eMarketer has revised its US social network ad spending projections, estimating that advertisers will spend $1.4 billion to place ads on online social networks this year, down from the previous projection of $1.6 billion.

US online social network ad spending is now projected to reach $2.6 billion in 2012. In its last projection, made in December 2007, eMarketer estimated that spending would reach $2.7 billion in 2011. Spending in that year is now expected to be $2.4 billion.

eMarketer's figures take into account all forms of advertising within social networks, including display, search and video ads, as well as any fees that marketers pay to social networks to develop profile pages or conduct promotions. For the first time, the new numbers also include widget and application ad spending. While widgets and applications can also appear on blogs and personal start pages, the majority of development has been for social network environments.

Today's economy, combined with the fact that social networks are still trying to come up with successful ad models, has led to lowered ad spending projections for the next few years.

Social networks still show some promise in developing new forms of online advertising. MySpace's HyperTargeting initiative, for example, has helped double CPMs at the site, and 75% of advertisers that have tried it have come back for more, according to News Corp. Facebook's SocialAds concept attempts to improve the relevance of advertising by mining the connections between Facebook members.

Both sites will also see new revenue streams from local advertising and self-service advertising, in which marketers can execute ad buys using an automated system.

The challenge is that all of these new forms of advertising are more difficult to plan, measure and quantify than what advertisers are used to, and that has impacted spending growth.

eMarketer projects that US online social network ad spending will grow 55% this year, down from 163% growth in 2007. The good news is that spending growth at online social networks will be more than double the 23% growth that eMarketer projects for the total US online ad market. Social networks are among the most popular sites on the Internet—particularly for the hard-to-reach youth audience—and marketers will continue to look for ways to reach consumers at those sites.

MySpace will account for 53% of total US online social network ad spending this year, but it has had monetization difficulties. Revenues at Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. unit that is dominated by MySpace, fell to $210 million in the March quarter from $233 million in the previous quarter, News Corp. reported in its earnings conference call last week. News Corp.'s fiscal year ends June 30.

As a result, eMarketer has lowered its forecast for 2008 US ad spending on MySpace to $755 million, from the previous estimate of $850 million.

eMarketer also lowered its 2008 forecast for Facebook ad spending to $265 million, from the previous estimate of $305 million. In addition to issues related to the economy, Facebook may also see a short-term revenue dip if marketers use ad budgets to create applications for its platform instead of purchasing advertising. Facebook does not receive any direct ad revenue when marketers launch applications on the site.

Combined, MySpace and Facebook are expected to account for 72% of the total US social network ad spending pie this year. Spending at all other online social network sites (including general social networks, niche networks and marketer-created networks) is expected to reach $370 million this year, while widget and application ad spending is projected to rise to $40 million this year, from $15 million in 2007.

At $1.4 billion, social network advertising will make up 5.5% of total US online ad spending this year. However, after 2010 eMarketer projects that social network sites will receive a lesser share of total spending, falling to 5.1% in 2012 after a peak of 6% in 2009-2010.

The revised US forecast also changes eMarketer's worldwide social network ad spending estimates. eMarketer now projects that advertisers will spend $2 billion on social networks worldwide in 2008, rising to $3.8 billion in 2011. The previous figure for 2011 was $4.1 billion.

Social Networking Fatigue

2008-05-18T17:12:08+01:00

We ran a poll on this blog to find out whether people feel they already have "social networking fatigue"

social networking fatigue n. Mental exhaustion and stress caused by creating and maintaining an excessive number of accounts on social networking sites. Also: social network fatigue.

The results ...

Almost half of our voters are already saturated by online social communications. We were very aware of this when developing the HSBC Business Network with LiveWorld and it's something all brands need to be aware of when jumping on the "community" bandwagon. Most of us already feel we have enough online places to go to, we barely have time to keep up to date and maintain our profiles and blogs already, so why would we give away our time and energy to a brand? Of course it's all about the value exchange.

Simon Andrews talks more about the Value Exchange here and the MindShare reboot here:

http://simonandrews.typepad.com/big_picture/2008/05/google-gets-the.html

Hot off the press ... mobile is the future

2008-05-18T16:43:08+01:00

I have just downloaded the new Typepad for Blackberry App so I can blog on the move. Really I just did this as part of our MindShare Interaction social communications experiment to see how connected I can really get between my mobile, desktop, laptop and the various profiles I keep. At the same time I added the Blog It application to my Facebook so I can blog from just about anywhere now. Of course I can also access Facebook from my Blackberry so that connects the whole lot together.

I rather proudly downloaded the mobile Facebook app by clicking on a banner ad on the Vodafone Live homepage. I am not sure why I was so proud, I certainly don't usually click on banner ads in a usual web environment but mobile internet still feels fascinating and new to me.

In fact "mobile" in general makes me feel rather old school and something of a laggard. Despite having talked about mobile being the future in various presentations over the last few years, despite having had a mobile phone within arms reach of me for the last 10 years, it's only now I have suddenly woken up to the fact that social communications of all kinds will be embedded in every activity - including mobile devices. Mobile communications accelerate the possibility of joining social communications in the real and virtual worlds in a way that computers would never allow.

So this is old news of course, children, teenagers and 20 somethings have known this for years. But now I have discovered I can Twitter, blog, get Facebook updates, take pictures, upload them to Flickr, find an address on Google Maps, check my email (work, hotmail, gmail), read my RSS feeds, play stupid time wasting games whilst being anywhere in the world and without having to access a wireless internet connection and carry a laptop, it's all starting to make sense.

Guide to the Benefits of Twitter

2008-05-09T10:56:44+01:00

Making the most of TwitterReal-time micro-blogging is gaining in popularity. Here's Charles Arthur's guide from The Guardian on the benefits of Twitter - and how to get started.

Just click on the link below

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/08/socialnetworking.twitter

EMEA growth in Social Networking

2008-05-06T14:25:18+01:00

UK, France and Germany are leading the way ...

Social networking use set to triple in four years

by Nikki Sandison Brand Republic 02-May-08, 13:30

LONDON - The UK has the highest social networking membership in Europe and it is forecast to almost triple by 2012 to 27m members, according to a report by independent market analyst Datamonitor.

If the forecast is correct, within four years almost half of Britons will belong to a social networking site such as MySpace and Facebook.

Datamonitor said that interaction is the key factor in a network's success and that while the trend is driven by the younger age groups, many older generations are also being drawn to social media.

It expects the UK to see the strongest growth in numbers in Europe over the next five years because its consumers have been quick to embrace the new technology and many social networks are only available in the English language when starting up.

Datamonitor points to several factors behind the strong growth in social networking sites including the convenience of being able to socialise without leaving the house and the popularity of user-generated content.

France recorded the second highest number of networking site users with 8.9m, a figure that is forecast to rise to 21.3m by 2012.

Germany came in third with 8.6m and is expected to rise to 21.7m by 2012. Overall Europe is predicted to more than double from 41.7m to 107.4m.

Matthew Taylor, consumer markets analyst at Datamonitor, said: "Consumers are creating and joining existing social communities which, if harnessed correctly, can be an important marketing tool.

"The wealth of information stored on online social networks provides many potential benefits for marketers."

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Digital/News/806790/Social-networking-use-set-triple-four-years/?DCMP=EMC-Digital%20Bulletin

Tweetcret - secret Twitter

2008-05-02T14:19:31+01:00

Tweetcret, a new Twitter-like service in which all entries are anonymous. Currently in beta but the idea is to post your secrets.

http://tweetcret.com/

"Whilst Mashable suspects that the premise might be flawed as there’s no level of editorial filter involved, it does raise all sorts of interesting questions. The concept of identity and the pathological need to share seems to be a cyclical thing - witness the beginnings of the internet, all weird fantasy faceless stuff, then internet dating, much more real life, then Second Life and MySpace cyberstalkers and postsecret, faceless again, then Facebook, real again, now this"

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/News%20Article.aspx?REF=792&IsArchive=false

Refresh Analytics - free to use

2008-05-01T12:24:25+01:00

Refresh Partners, a company that provides end-to-end marketing solutions for Facebook, Bebo and MySpace applications, is launching Refresh Analytics. This new segment of the Refresh brand actually provides developers and app owners analytic and demographic information about their users.

By teaming with Joynet, which hosts a number of Facebook apps, Refresh is able to provide a bit more data than what some developers would be able to obtain on their own. Refresh Analytics is free to use, and offers tracking across 13 demographic and 6 interest categories, such as geography, marital status, music, books, age, etc.

The information is of course non-personally identifiable, and will provide a daily snapshot of 1000 users. That should be enough to cover the majority of app owners out there, especially those that would be using a free service.

It’s still up to you to determine the best course of action depending on the data Refresh Analytic provides, but it could certainly be worth your while to have some third-party validity to the metrics surrounding your Facebook application, whether you use the data to improve your service or seek out better advertising solutions. AdMob is another advertising firm that is offering some of its analytic capabilities to other services in the mobile sector.

http://mashable.com/

The 7 chambers

2008-05-01T12:22:06+01:00

First to market - Launched viral marketing service in 2000. Part of the Kontraband Group and they monitor buzz globally.
Part of a network of over 100 selected entertainment and social networking sites, 50,000 global blogs - reaching over 40 million users per month. They also work closely with mobile networks to distribute mobile virals and content across mobile social networks.

They can track and report the following (real time)
• Number of views from network of sites
• “Viral” buzz - dependent on client measurement.
• Embeds, emailed, bookmarks
• Blogs and websites uploads
• “Send to a friend” messages
• Country views
• Views by gender*
• Views by age*
• Views by income demographic*
– *500k+ views required to publish this information

Unruly Media

2008-05-01T12:13:02+01:00

Unruly Media runs a massive, distributed viral seeding network, offering unparalleled targeting
capabilities and a state-of-the-art analytics and buzz monitoring platform.

They offer real time buzz monitoring as part of the reporing suite.