Mobile social networking boom and trends

Mobile social networking is a booming field and it has took the smartphone market by storm. Here are some amazing facts and figures about this booming field.

By the year 2013, 43% of global mobile internet users (607.5 million people worldwide) will be accessing social networks from their mobile devices, according to a new report from eMarketer, which characterizes mobile and social as still-emerging channels that are each helping drive the adoption of the other (Marketing Charts, 2011). In the US, mobile social networkers will total 56.2 million by 2013, and will account for nearly half (45%) of the mobile internet user population, eMarketer said (Marketing Charts, 2011).

Not surprisingly, the top destinations for mobile social networkers mirror those for computer users and include Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (Marketing Charts, 2011).

The full top-10 list:

1.     Facebook

2.     MySpace

3.     YouTube

4.     Twitter

5.     Yahoo

6.     MSN/Windows Live/Bing

7.     Flickr

8.     LinkedIn

9.     Blogger

10. MocoSpace

A look at selected social networking brands, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, revealed that each grew their mobile audiences by at least 50% in the past year (Marketing Charts, 2011). Facebook was home to the largest mobile audience among the three destinations with more than 57 million mobile users in August, up 50% from 38.2 million the previous year (Marketing Charts, 2011). Twitter saw its mobile audience jump 75% to 13.4 million people from 7.6 million people, while LinkedIn’s mobile audience climbed 69% from 3.2million to 5.5 million users (Marketing Charts, 2011).

Sources

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/direct/mobile-social-networking-booms-19742/

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/interactive/mobile-social-networking-grows-top-10-socnets-11089/

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Mobile Social Networking

Mobile social network is a network with a social aspect where people can converse and connect via the mbole or cell phone devices. Social networking has exploded to become one of the most popular online activities. The rapid take-up of smartphones has helped extend this behaviour to mobile, with the latest ComScore MobiLens report showing mobile social networking booming (Mobile, 2010).

Social networking has been the fastest growing activity to have been accessed via a mobile app over the past year, up 390%. In April 2009, 37% of all people who visited a social network from their mobile device did so every day (Mobile, 2010). By April 2010 this number had risen to 44% (Mobile, 2010).

In April 2009 an eighth of all mobile users aged 13 and over accessed a social network or blog at least once during the month. By April this year this had leapt to a fifth. The largest group of mobile social networkers are 25-34-year-olds but the fastest growing is 45-54-year- olds (Mobile, 2010).

Smartphones are still driving this trend - 49% of smartphone users visited a social network in April 2010 versus 13% of non-smartphone users. Two-thirds of Apple or Google device users have accessed social networks in the past month, despite the latter's low market penetration (Mobile, 2010).

References: MOBILE: Mobile data social networking. (2010, June 10). New Media Age, 23. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.library.sheridanc.on.ca/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA228634659&v=2.1&u=ko_acd_shc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w

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Smart Phones are Future Of Social Networking

 

A report from ComScore illustrates that currently users use Facebook and twitter more on smart phones in comparisons to computers or laptops. Users spends 7 hours on Facebook via mobile while they spend 6 hours browsing through computers and laptops (Jon,2012) .For twitter mobile users spend more than two hours while around 20 minutes on computers. Use of Pinterest and tumblr through smartphone climb to 7.5 million and 4.5 million respectively per hour (Jon,2012) . It is viewed that most of these Social networking sites are accessed through apps on smart Phones. The table below shows the figures of accessing social networking sites through smart Phones.(Jon,2012)

References:

                       Dub, J. (2012). Why smartphones are the future of social networking. Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jondube/2012/05/08/why-smartphones-are-the-future-of-social-networking/

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Future Of Mobile and Social Media in Education

Social medial Technology (SMT) means use of mobile and web based technology that allows individuals or different organizations to access or share information in different Ways (charles,2013). The Use of Social media is increasing widely in field of education (Hester,2013). Those days are gone when students used to go school with heavy bags having bunch of books as now a small mobile  with a web or internet is able to provide all possible content and information and serve as a library (charles,2013). The development and intervention in technology completely changes the tradition system of education (Hester,2013).

Social media provides a new form of communication which helps students to build up connections by accessing social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more especially to those students who do not participate in class activities actively because they feel free to express their opinions through social media sites (Hester,2013) .Students are getting involved with their peers and teachers by posting pictures, links and sharing information and discussions. Social media is also used by educational organization for marketing purposes for new admissions(Hester,2013) .This video shows how social media effects education field.

References

1)Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Overcoming Hurdles to Social Media in Education. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/overcoming-hurdles-social-media-education

2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOXPBYx5AOU

3) Davis, C. (n.d.). Social Media in Higher Education: A Literature Review and Research Directions | Charles H.F. Davis III - Academia.edu. Academia.edu - Share research. Retrieved July 31, 2013, from http://www.academia.edu/1220569/Social_Media_in_Higher_Education_A_Literature

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Digital humanitarianism

Mobile tech can be a major driver of protest for sure but in the end of the day it is not about the technology but about how people chose to use technology i.e. its about behavior. In this video, Paul Conneally shows extraordinary examples of social media and other new technologies becoming central to humanitarian aid.

Reference:

Conneally.P (2011, November). Digital Humanitarianism. TED ideas worth spreading. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_conneally_digital_humanitarianism.html

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Mobile Technology- 3G to Present

Third generation boosted the mobile technology and moved media heights up high. Introduction to 3G network and camera phone added many features such as uploading pictures, profile searches, interact with strangers outside the friend circle etc. Now people were able to video call, send and receive pictures and access high speed internet. Meanwhile around this era, social networking sites like orkut became popular. After few years facebook took over which attracted the attention on many other internet users. This was a huge change in the history to social media and social sites.

In 2010, Mobile technology reached to high speed network called 4G. In addition to 3G network, it support LTE and WiMAX contenders. Features included, web 2.0, multiplayer gaming, flash,multipoint audio chat, video conversation and all the old features of 3G.

Reference: Mousa, A. M. (2012). Prospective of Fifth Generation Mobile Communications. International Journal Of Next-Generation Networks, 4(3), 11-30. doi:10.5121/ijngn.2012.4302

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Mobile Phone Choices

Mobile phones are now created as social tools. Smartphones are especially good at being social, integrating text, voice, video and images in an endless number of apps that can serve a user’s needs, and all without the need for a web-based social network. Almost 750 million users out of a smartphone population of over billion are already using these apps.

If you are Google, Facebook or almost any other major provider of social communications platforms originally developed for the web, this move to mobile messaging represents a considerable challenge. Choices of mobile phones are changing every year. Most of the population own the smartphones which are latest and support social network better than others. We have previously experienced a shift from the second generation (2G) to the third generation (3G) mobile phones, which changed the way people use their mobile phones. The rise of the 3G network and its consumer acceptance is said to be one of the toughest marketing challenges in recent history (Benady, 2002).  Recent Consumer shift from 3G to 4G means that in order to be able to use the services offered by the faster network consumers need to acquire new mobile handsets equipped with more easy Internet access and new features such as possibility to have gesture recognition, event manager, wireless charging etc. However, at present the majority of new mobile phones purchased are low-cost handsets without the latest technological features.

Benady, D. (2002). As simple as one-two-3G. Marketing Week, 26-29.

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Evolution of Mobile phones

                Mobile phones has certainly came a long way from the Motorola's DynaTACs in 1984 to smartphones available these days. These first used to weight between 500- 900 grams (CBC, 2013). The first original smartphone was launched in 1993 by Bellsouth and IBM (CBC, 2013). They announced their creation of the Simon personal communicator phone, touted as the world's first smartphone (CBC, 2013). The device, with a $899 suggested pricetag, boasted such features as: a pager, e-mail, a stylus for writing on the screen, with handwriting reflected as-is for faxes, a complete keypad featuring letters and numbers and a calendar that could be updated automatically from a remote computer (CBC, 2013).

                           The first camera-phones were Nokia 7650 and the Sanyo SPC-5300 launched back in 2001 (CBC, 2013). Web on the mobile phone is certainly not new and has come a long way from black and white WAP services.

                          BlackBerry's first integrated phone (BlackBerry 6210) was unveiled in 2003 which offered features such as email, texting, a web browser, BlackBerry messenger service, allowing for web-based communication between BlackBerry users (CBC, 2013).

                          One of the major developments in history of smartphones was the launch of first iPhone by Apple on 2007. The company described the phone as combining three products into one handheld device: a mobile phone, an iPod and a wireless communication device (CBC, 2013). One of the revolutionary feature was the touch screen which allowed users to command the device using fingers (CBC, 2013). 

                                                                                Sources

              http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/04/02/tech-cellphone-anniversary-top-moments-in-history.html

              http://global.factiva.com.library.sheridanc.on.ca/ha/default.aspx

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What is Mobile Phone : Definitions

According to Webopedia Mobile phone is, “an electronic telecommunications device, often referred to as a cellular phone or cellphone. Mobile phones connect to a wireless communications network through radio wave or satellite transmissions. Most mobile phones provide voice communications, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and newer phones may also provide Internet services such as Web browsing and e-mail”(Webopedia, 2013).

                  According to Oxford Dictionaries Mobile phone is, “a telephone with access to a cellular radio system so it can be used over a wide area, without a physical connection to a network”(Oxford Dictionaries, 2012).

                  According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online Mobile phone is, “ phone that is connected to the phone system by radio instead of by a wire, and can be used anywhere its signals can be received”(Cambridge Dictionaries, 2012).

                  In Summary a Mobile Phone is a mobile or a freely moving device or a phone which uses radio or satellite system to connect to a network.

                                                        Sources

              http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/mobile-phone?q=mobile+phone

              http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/mobile-phone

              http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/mobile_phone.html

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