I just read this interesting article at Zdnet and once again they seem to have got the measure of the mobile community opportunity:
“Social networking Web sites such as MySpace.com, which will soon go mobile, could become key applications driving data usage on new 3G wireless networks. For years, mobile operators, which have spent billions upgrading their networks to 3G wireless technologies, have tried to get customers to do more than talk on their cell phones. Despite their efforts, the vast majority of revenue still comes from voice calling.
But that could change in the next few years. A lot of fuss has already been made about people watching TV on their mobiles and downloading music to them on the go, but there’s another application that could also generate significant 3G data usage — social networking.
“Carriers have invested a lot of money in their networks,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “And at this point it’s a lot like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see which applications will stick. I doubt there will be any single killer application, but social networking on mobile phones could certainly be one that generates usage.”
In many ways, mobile phones are the ideal tools for social networking and building online communities. Not only are people rarely without their phones, but today’s handsets come equipped with sophisticated tools as well, such as cameras and digital music and video players and recorders, that can be used for documenting life. Mobile-handset makers Nokia and Sony Ericsson are even embedding technology into some of their phones that’s designed to make it easier for users to upload pictures and text to blogs. These phones are solid tools for people wanting to share photos, video clips or songs with their online communities.
What’s more, those in the teen and twentysomething crowd — the biggest users of online social networks — also happen to be some of the heaviest users of mobile data services such as text messaging and downloadable ring tones.
