Mobile Social Networking

The Social Networking market is ripe with potential for relevant mobile messaging applications. For the social networking sites themselves, marketing is first on the list, whether it's to promote additional services being offered or to increase traffic by bringing people back into the site.

Then there's the whole area of alerts. Say an important message is left on your profile page at a social networking site. New mobile services can now generate an alert and send it to the page owner's handset, urging log-in and viewing of the new message ASAP.

Or take blogging. Consumers want to upload content to their blogs when mobile-not just text either, but video and audio as well-and they're happy to pay for this service.

Some of the benefits of mobile messaging in this market include:

• Building traffic quickly and easily
• Updating mobile social networkers and promoting return visits
• Generating revenue without a credit card relationship (adding charges to the mobile bill instead)
• Marketing in very targeted and sophisticated ways, including joint promotions and direct response