The 3G Dating Agency’s Blog

Whilst across Europe only 5% of users are using the Mobile Internet, a comScore report has shown that social networking is the key driver of new users.

With 12.1 million users in Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K.), mobile social networking has grown by 152% in the year to November 2008. The U.K. leads – with the highest penetration of mobile social networking, at 9%, nearly triple that of Germany, where the activity is the least popular. In November 2008, 34% of mobile phone owners in Western Europe who visited social networking sites accessed social media exclusively of all other mobile Web content.

Alistair Hill, analyst, comScore M:Metrics said “A large portion of the growth in the mobile Internet audience can be attributed to social networking, in the UK, for example, the audience of those accessing news and information, but not social networking services, with their mobile browser or an application grew by 149,000 unique users, whereas the number of those exclusively accessing social networking grew by six times that number in the past year.”

comScore also analyzed the demographics of social media users in Europe, and found that those who use social networking exclusive of other mobile Internet content skew more female than those who consume other forms of mobile Internet content. Women comprise 48% of the audience accessing only social media, but only 32% of those who access other types of mobile Internet content. In addition, the median age for social media-only users is 28, versus 36 for other mobile Internet users.

“This development is encouraging for the future of the mobile Internet, social networking is taking the mobile Internet out of the early adopter demographic, and into the mainstream.”

comScore M:Metrics also released the results of its Mobile Benchmark Study. Social networking and e-mail usage posted some of the largest gains, while playing downloaded games and watching video dipped in most European markets.

Read the story at Cellular News

Visit the comScore Press Release/Stats

Kevin Braddock, Contributing editor at GQ Magazine, writes an article in Soho House magazine on the “Banality of Passion”

After wrongly suggesting that i told the Dragons in the BBC Dragons Den that i was “passionate” – check here and you can see exactly what i did say – he suggests there is something wrong about the next hopeful entrant to Pop Idol being deeply madly passionate about wanting to make it to be the next Leona Lewis or Will Young.

Maybe it’s just me that finds it particularly ironic that this appeared in Soho House Magazine – the in-house magazine for a company who are literally falling over themselves to use the word. Just to work there you must be experienced, passionate, enthusiastic and dedicated!

Dr Windsor Holden of Juniper Research has published a new report that suggests Mobile Dating revenues are set to soar as new event-based charging models and advertising revenues push the value of the mobile dating and chatroom market to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013, part of a burgeoning user-generated content (UGC) market that will reach $7.3 billion by the same time.

The report says that while subscription revenues will continue to contribute the bulk of service revenues over the next five years, an increasing number of dating companies have now switched to offering event-based charging, through products which offer free registration but levy charges when end-users wish to contact one another, or else offer virtual gifts for subscribers to send to other users.

According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, “While the subscription-based approach remains the prevalent business model in this area, services which are free at point of discovery rapidly generate a far higher customer base. Furthermore, many companies which have migrated to this approach are seeing conversion rates amongst customers buying premium rate goods and services which generate revenues significantly in excess of those achieved under flat rate subscriptions.”