Social Networking Goes Mobile

Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have emerged recently as some of the hottest names on the Internet, with daily news reports of new partnerships, advertising initiatives and acquisition activity. Indeed, several of the top five social networking sites - MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Orkut and Friendster - rank among the top 10 most-visited websites globally. Unsurprisingly, the growth in interest in social networking has led to a number of important deals by major online brands and media firms. These include News Corp' s July 2005 acquisition of MySpace for US$580m and more recently Microsoft' s purchase of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240m, a purchase price that values the entire company, which has annual revenue of some $100-150m, at an impressive $15bn.

The report Social Networking Goes Mobile by Pyramid Research looks at the social networking business model and analyzes its future, including forecasting the number of social networking members expected globally by 2012. In addition, this executive-level report assesses the current and future state of mobile social networking, whereby members access their favorite sites using their mobile devices. In particular we analyze the rationale for both stakeholder groups - the social networking sites and the mobile operators - for collaborating to offer mobile social networking services, including the revenue mobile operators can gain from adding social networking to their offerings. We also profile some of the top players in the mobile social networking world, including mobile operators, social networking sites and software developers working to enable this shared future.

• How do social networking services fit into the larger online media landscape today?
• How are social networking services spreading across the globe?
• What role will mobility play for social networks, and what role will social networking services play for mobile operators?
• What benefits will mobile network operators and social networking service providers find in working together?
• Will advertising, subscription fees or premium, “extra” services dominate the social networking business model?
• How large is the revenue opportunity?

Mobile operators globally

Quantify the opportunity in social networking services, and assess your strengths in building an effective strategy to create or expand your social networking-based revenue streams. Evaluate the optimal model for partnering with social networking service providers. Develop a revenue model for social networking services that fits into you larger mobile data revenue strategy, examining advertising, subscription fees and premium services. Devise tactics to counter social networking moves by competitors.

Social network service providers

Assess the optimal strategy to tackle the mobile market for social networking. Find out the projected growth in social networking usage and the factors driving it. Quantify the mobile social networking market' s size. Discover what makes it different from social networking on the fixed Internet and how to make it attractive to advertisers. Evaluate how best to form partnerships with mobile operators.

Investors and financial institutions

This report will help you assess the long-term financial prospects of mobile social network services for both providers and operators globally. Use Pyramid Research' s forecasts of metrics such as mobile subscribers, mobile advertising revenue and social networking revenue to focus investments in growth areas.