No matter where you go, it’s impossible to escape talk of social networking sites. Newspapers are littered with stories and someone will undoubtedly mention the name of a particular site before your day is out. Recently there’s been lots in the news about the boom of social networking sites, but what about mobile social networking sites? There are currently 31 mobile social networking services, including Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, a number that is expected to rise this year as these are attracting large numbers of users by providing new business opportunities.There are also a number of Web 2.0 type services such as Twitter than whilst not necessarily mobile services, use features such as SMS to keep people up to date.Christine Perey of Mobile Social Networking comments, “Mobile social networking is reaching its first boiling point and everyone wants to participate.”International research by Informa Telecoms & Media, the leading provider of business intelligence to global telecoms and media markets, reveals that the amount of world-wide users of mobile social networks rose to 57 million in 2007, double that of 2006. The telecoms intelligence company predicts that the growth in revenue of this market will only accelerate and that by 2012 will reach $52 billion.I’ve been at the Web 2.0 Expo this week and even amongst all the evangalising, mobile social networking and ambient computing has been a common thread – definitely something to keep your eye on!
