After the twitter post, I realize that Micro updates are good for us. It fits the behavioral attitudes of the Gen Y. Check out a really good detailed description here and how we’re different!
Mobile phones are an essential part of our lives today. It’s our greatest social tool next to the internet, It’s how we keep in touch with everyone else. In fact, search engine giant Yahoo! has already launched their Beta version of Go3.0 to emphasize how much they believe mobile is the way to go! (Yeah, free advertising, find out more at CommunicAsia 2008!)
So with more than 1.8 billion mobile phones worldwide and an increase in mobile penetration and 3G subscriptions, wouldn’t it only seem natural that our social networking move towards mobile? (Ok, social networking refers to social networking sites like Facebook and Mysace mobile, I’m not considering the blogosphere here! Haha, to avoid confusion over my last post on Gender Differences and Appeal in social networking sites)
There have been various mobile social networks coming up, Singapore’s very own Buzzcity is one of them with myGama. This article provides a great intro into the mobile social networks. Its going to be a huge market, social networking giants Facebook and Myspace have reported increase number of views from their mobile sites, and an ever increasing number of mobile social networks only hint at an ever growing market.
So my question now is will these hold true for Singapore’s mobile social network? There are a few factors to consider….
Behavioral Patterns:
Surfing the net on a mobile and on the internet is different. Sitting in front of a laptop and surfing around is good and fine, but with a mobile, the size of the screen might prove to be a limiting factor. Mobile surfers have different needs which are excellently highlighted here by Buongoirno. Check out the study done, the methodology was pretty cool with some pretty amazing results which i think some but not all can be applied to Singapore as well. Note that social networking was the primary activity here.
But if you think about it, a mobile user in Singapore would only serve to kill time. Waiting for the cab or a friend to check mail or movie timings, would we really have the time to serve on a social networking site?
Compatibility:
Its such a pain in the ass to know that your phone is not compatible with the social networking sites we want to join. But given the rate we change our phones, this problem might soon phase out as developers try to have a wide compatibility with most phone carriers. But in the meantime, it leads to another problem, how many people do you know who have compatible phones and are willing to go to these mobile social networking sites?
Connection Prices
We have a great infrastructure here in Singapore that supports wirless connections. bUt with regards to mobile and 3G, cheaper flat rates should be suggested to increase mobile social networking usgae.
There are of course other factors which various magazines have covered, but I’ll cut short here. Like the rest of the world, Singapore’s mobile social networking market seems to be a growing market with very slow uptake. It might be due to the factors mentioned
I guess there are 1 huge question which i’m curious about now:
With regards to PR and branding, are we ever going to use mobile social networking sites to build consumer relationships? If we are, then how do we go about doing it? Will it be the same as our current laptop/desktop online social networking sites?
Posted by oldskoolmark
oldskoolmark
