MySpace Sees Tremendous Growth in Mobile Social Networking

The extent to which mobile phones are used today has increased enormously over the last few years. People have moved beyond the traditional communication uses of the mobile phone and now use it for various other reasons like playing games, messaging, banking, and social networking. Hence, it is not surprising that social networks are investing in mobile social networking and considering it to be the future.

Amongst the popular social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and MySpace are used heavily through wireless devices, especially in the United States and the European countries. Therefore, looking at the potential of mobile social networking, MySpace is creating a mobile presence since over two years and working towards fitting the site on smartphones and other small-screen mobile phones.

The site has been successful so far in providing mobile users similar look and feel of the site, as they experience on the desktop PCs. Moreover, the scope for mobile advertising has increased by introducing social networking features with the service, which is proving advantageous to MySpace in some manner or the other. According to John Faith, general manager of MySpace Mobile, the company runs a profitable business of mobile advertising.

Encouraging advertisers to consider mobile advertising could have been a challenging task for MySpace, as it said that it has had to convince advertisers of the value of mobile ads. For end users who are away from the PC, mobile ads are best suited for them as they (users) want something there and now, Faith said. MySpace has recorded 450% year-on-year (YoY) growth in mobile subscribers, and Faith believes that the time of mobile Internet is now.

Though the number of users connected to MySpace Mobile is not revealed, Faith predicts that 50% of the traffic on the site will flow from wireless devices in the next couple of years.