Mobile Social Networking: strategies and case studies

Abstract

“Social networking has gathered huge momentum on the Web, and much effort is being expended to extend this trend to mobile environment. However, the business models and partnerships required to create a healthy and profitable market for mobile social networking are still evolving.”

Operators, handset vendors and social networking service providers are keen to identify the business models that will help them to transfer the popularity enjoyed by social networking services on the Web to the mobile market. This report helps to address this need by examining the types of companies that are creating mobile social networks, and uses case studies to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The SWOT analyses are used to recommend strategies for each type of company, as well as identify the mutually beneficial partnerships that can be formed.

Mobile social networking: strategies and case studies provides insight based on interviews with online social networking service providers Facebook and MySpace, as well as emerging mobile-specific networks such as Bluepulse and GyPSii. It also analyses the potential impact of Nokia' s Share on Ovi on the competitive landscape, and includes case studies of major operators worldwide.

Mobile social networking: strategies and case studies answers your key questions about how to maximise this emerging market opportunity:

• How can mobile operators make best use of their unique position to drive and benefit from mobile social networking?
• Which revenue models (such as traffic revenue, subscriptions, advertising and transactions) will dominate the mobile social networking market, how will they evolve, and how will they differ by type of social network?
• What form of relationship between operators and social networks is going to create a mutually beneficial environment in which the greatest market opportunities are realised?

• Mobile network operators and MVNOs: senior executives, product managers, business development and marketing executives, and technology leaders, to understand how they can maximise the revenue from mobile social networking, what types of relationships they should form with social networks, vendors and other enablers, which revenue models will work best for them, how they can make best use of their mobile assets, and the value of the mobile social networking opportunity.
• Handset vendors and other social network enablers: senior executives, technology strategists, product developers and business development executives, to determine whether they should provide mobile social networking services or be an enabler of them, what position they should adopt in the value chain, and what types of relationship they should form with established social networks, MNOs and MVNOs.
• Online social networks: senior executives, and product and business development managers, to understand how adding mobility can add value to their propositions, how they can use it to gain more users or generate additional revenue, which mobile features are going to be most useful to them, and what sort of relationships they should be forming with MNOs and MVNOs.
• Mobile social networks: senior executives, and product and business development managers, to understand how to attract a large number of users and monetize them.