MySpace and Research In Motion have teamed up to develop a MySpace Mobile application for BlackBerry handsets. It’s due to be available later this year, and will let you access your MySpace profile and contacts on the go, while also using push messaging to get updates to your BlackBerry.
It’s good news for heavy MySpace users, albeit some time behind rival Facebook, whose similar BlackBerry app has been around for a long time now. However, it seems RIM and MySpace will be working together in other ways, such as making a BlackBerry “community page” on MySpace where users will be able to get news, content, videos, games, ringtones and skins for their device.
MySpace is certainly keen on the mobile side of its business. The company says it now gets more than two million daily visitors to its WAP site. The interesting thing in terms of BlackBerry, however, would be if MySpace made it possible to stream music from band profiles to your phone, bringing in that side of the website, rather than just the social networking elements.
Well, analysts always say everything is set to explode, in the full knowledge that they won’t be picked up on it in five years time if it doesn’t. So ABI Research is eagerly predicting that location-based mobile social networking will be generating $3.3 billion of revenues by 2013 from a mixture of advertising and subscriptions.
Really? That much? It’s a bold prediction for an area that’s so nascent, nobody’s sure if a lot of mobile users even want to be tracking their friends and be tracked in return. It’s true that there’s a lot of activity in the area from companies like Loopt (pictured) and Whrrl, particularly around the launch of the iPhone 3G.
But still, it seems quite early to be predicting a cash bonanza for all these companies, especially if a lot of that cash is due to come from the equally early-days mobile advertising market. Still, one thing’s for sure, if there are billions to be made from this stuff, you can bet Google will be hoovering up as large a percentage as possible.
UK-based mobile social network Flirtomatic has launched a dedicated iPhone version of its site, with an interface customised for Apple’s handset (although it also works on the iPod Touch). The new site will let users register, login, chat, search for and rate each other, and send and receive gifts. All the main features of Flirtomatic, in other words. The company says it’ll be launching location search soon, too. It’s not a native iPhone application, but rather a website accessed through the iPhone’s Safari browser. It’s a sensible thing to do, given the research showing iPhone owners are keen web surfers. Flirtomatic is hoping the new site will help boost its userbase beyond the 400,000 people already using the service on their phones in the UK. The site’s doing pretty well though: in May, more than one million messages were sent between users every day.
The Sidekick messaging devices haven’t had as high a profile here in the UK as in the US, although T-Mobile is now selling the very attractive Sidekick Slide, which should change that. Not least because it’s just got a new MySpace Mobile application, providing push access to the social network. Push? Yep: you can access messages, comments, friend requests and other info, and get automatic alerts pop up to tell you when new messages arrive, rather than have to log in to check them. There’s also one-button uploading of photos to your profile, and the ability to edit your profile from the Sidekick. Oh, and the app is free to use, too. If you have a Sidekick, you can download it from the community folder of the handset’s Catalogue menu. It’s certainly a neat idea, and is comparable to the dedicated Facebook application for BlackBerry devices that was launched last year. Actually, that’s our only quibble with the Sidekick news - it’d be nice to have similar apps for Facebook and Bebo available for the Slide…
Within the mobile industry, there’s a big debate going on at the moment around mobile social networking. In particular, it’s about who’s going to make big bucks from it: the existing online social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo) or mobile startups? And equally importantly (if you’re an operator), how are the mobile operators going to grab some of that cash for themselves?There’s an interesting article on the VentureBeat blog about a startup called Xumii, which claims operators have been beating down its door. Why? Well, it’s not a standalone social network as such - but instead a mobile social network aggregator that promises to let you “take all your friends and family from your social networks with you - on your phone”.It’s in closed beta at the moment, but its website says it supports Facebook, AIM, Windows Live, Google, Yahoo and Flickr. Note that list: only one of the big three web social networks is currently supported, with four instant messaging clients and a photo-sharing service. The idea of one application to interact with all your Web 2.0 sites is certainly appealing, especially if offered through your operator with no data charges. Xumii looks well worth keeping an eye on in the coming months.