“Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives,” observed Mark Donovan, senior vice president, mobile, comScore. “This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information.”

“Social networking and blogging have emerged as very popular daily uses of the mobile Web and these activities are growing at a torrid pace,” observed Donovan. “We also note that much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications, such as those offered for the iPhone, and by text-based searches. While smartphones and high-end feature phones, like the Samsung Instinct and LG Dare comprise the Top 10 devices used for news and information access, 70 percent of those accessing mobile Internet content are using feature phones.”

In January, 22.3 million people accessed news and information via a downloaded application. Maps are the most popular downloaded application with 8.2 million users, while search was the overwhelmingly favored use for SMS-based news and information access, with 14.1 million users. Overall, 32.4 million people used SMS to access news and information in January.

Young males are the most avid users of mobile news and information, with half of 18 to 34-year-old males engaging in the activity. The mobile Internet is also quite popular among females in the 18 to 24-year-old demographic, with 40 percent accessing it at least once in January.

Twitter is a communication network that enables users to send and receive text based posts of up to 140 characters (known as “tweets”). Updates are displayed on a users profile page at Twitter.com and delivered in real time to those who’ve signed up for them. Twitter updates can also be received through integration with other social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin (using Twhirl software) or via SMS, RSS or Twittermobile.

Key features include: a personal newsfeed, ‘who’s online’, status & location, extended profile, searchable user directory, private messaging, email, SMS, blogging, photo-sharing and mobile IM, providing a compelling mobile social networking experience.

Trutap is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile social networks. Anyone can download the Trutap application to their phone for free and start chatting with friends immediately. Today, the service has 250,000 users around the world, sending millions of messages every week.

And now, thanks to the Ping.fm-SpinVox collaboration, this service will convert your voice to text and posted to your social networks – optionally with a link to the original sound file. (Right now, this feature is working for US/Canada and UK phone users only).

Simply dial the number and speak your message. Yay!

[via SMSTextNews]

According to CNET, the challenge for GoodRec is getting distribution and users to create a social web of recommendations. Users are already giving recommendations on Facebook, MySpace, Yelp, and a variety of other other services.

They said in their website:

Goodrec is the easiest way to make, find and remember recommendations among friends.

After years of seeking and making recommendations for everything from brunch spots to beach books via phone calls, emails, and crumpled paper napkins (often only to lose them moments later), we decided there had to be a better way!

Existing online review sites didn’t address our needs…

Reading through wordy online reviews from people we’d never met took too long and didn’t mean much to us anyway. Visiting different sites for different topics was a hassle. And more importantly, our friends weren’t submitting reviews online because it was just too much effort. We were always asking for ideas and tips, then having to keep track of them somehow.

Since Goodrec has a lot of competition, they should think to integrate their service to a number of social networks in order to invite and engage many users.

CellSpin is also supporting eBay auctions as well as post to Blogger, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Live Journal and Live Spaces.

Bobby Singh, CEO of CellSpin, said, it’s the easiest mobile application to use for sharing all four media types. He expects to expand updating via mobile phones to other social network Web sites later this year.

The CellSpin software is now available on 300+ mobile phone models worldwide.

Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in San Jose, CA, and dedicated to making the Mobile 2.0 experience.

To add the CellSpin mobile blogging web application to your MySpace profile, click here and to add it your Facebook profile, visit here. It’s worthy to try.

Source

The concept of using social networking websites from a mobile phone is fast catching on in the USA, as all tier-I and tier-II operators now offer social networking applications. Support from mobile operators expects to directly impact application discoverability, provide marketing support, and drive growth in the U.S. mobile social networking markets.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan finds that revenue from on-deck mobile social networking services in the U.S. expect to reach $ 412 million in 2012. Additional revenues can also be expected from mobile advertising.

Yeah, it’s the big challenge for the social networking sites to create their friendly-mobile service versions and having more creative on proposing its business model.

Source: Cellular News, 3GWeek