The latest research shows that mobile social network growth is going to increase quite radically over the next few years. Great, now I have facts and figures to back what I’ve been thinking and saying all along. This is just common sense when you live in a country that has 300%, if not more, cellphone users than internet users.
When companies like Naspers (see MXit), MTN (see NokNok) and Vodacom (see Liv.tv, The Grid and Meep) start investing heavily in mobile applications, then you know they’ve done the maths and it’s going to be big. They’ve gotten in a bit late, in some cases, but never the less they’ve invested in the social mobile space.
Facebook allows users to access a lot of it’s functionality and features through their mobile and iPhone versions. Which makes it a worthy competitor in the mobile social networking space. However, our own local services such as MXit and Liv.tv are some what more niche than Facebook, giving them the upper hand when it comes to providing certain services and content.
The services that get it right first will benefit from the peak, if they provide a service that adds value to the user. The novelty of social networking has worn off, it’s all about satisfying the user’s needs. However the biggest problem that lies ahead is the portability of user’s data and their social graphs between the different social networks.
So in conclusion to my rambling, mobile is the next big thing. There is a lot of time and effort being put into different mobile social networks, as almost every new web service has a mobile component. It’s going to be interesting to see who comes out on top over the next few years.
Tags: Mobile, social networking
Great post, and spot on. I think the big catalyst for mobile apps is going to be Google Android. The always on networking functionality, cloudlike data storage and cellphone-mast-triangulation location services change the game completely. The mobile networks are not going to be able to hide those services behind paid for walled gardens for much longer.
4Travel (www.4travel.co.za) is the largest accommodation listing site in South Africa. They made browsing of 6000 establishments in South Africa Mobile friendly. Customers can even pay with their credit card for reservations using a mobile phone.
Thanks for the post. The surge in mobile phone connectivity in especially Africa will not only have social networking benefits, but play a key role in Africa’s development path. Any thoughts on how this ‘next best thing’ can be better applied to address real world problem such as poverty, loss of well being and environmental degradation? Can social networking play a prominent role in this as well?