mi-space

Mobile Social Networking Gains Momentum

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.

Social Networking Ad Spending Update

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.

Social Networking Fatigue

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

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

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

See also:

http://www.mi-space.info/2008/04/twittering-abou.html

p.s. We would like to apologise to Charles Arthur for initially publishing his whole article on our blog.  It was an oversight and we do not want to direct the audience away from the Guardian website. Mi-space.info is a agency team exercise and resource for MindShare Interaction to gather useful information and make comment about the latest trends in the social communications sphere.

EMEA growth in Social Networking

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.

Tweetcret - secret Twitter

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/

Refresh Analytics - free to use

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.

The 7 chambers

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.

Unruly Media

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.