The recent emergence of location-based mobile social networking services
offered by providers such as GyPSii, Pelago and Loopt is revolutionizing social
networking by allowing users to share real-life experiences via geo-tagged
user-generated multimedia content, exchange recommendations about places,
identify nearby friends and set up ad hoc face to face meetings.
"Location-based mobile social networking revenues will reach $3.3 billion by
2013, but successful business models may differ from what many observers
expect," says
Dominique Bonte. "While location-based advertising integrated with
sophisticated algorithms holds a lot of promise, the current reality rather
points to licensing and revenue-sharing models as the way forward for social
networking start-ups to grow their customer base and reach profitability.
Recent evidence
and both Garmin and Samsung. Similarly, Loopt has established partnerships with
all major
cellular carriers.
New positioning technologies such as Skyhook Wireless's hybrid solution
combining
improved indoor coverage have been licensed to several social networking
vendors. Many social sites are powered by open location-based platforms such as
uLocate's Where. However, several factors are hindering mass market adoption of
location-based mobile social networking. Privacy concerns are still a major
issue. Many small players are struggling to create sufficient brand awareness
in a fragmented market. And the traditional concerns about the cost of data
plans also cast their shadow over social networking.
Location-based mobile social networking constitutes a framework within which
previously independently-launched location-based services such as search,
friend-finder, people tracking and user-generated content find new momentum by
complementing and reinforcing each other. Hence, it comes as no surprise that
Nokia is moving in quickly with the acquisition of Plazes and the beta launch
of the location-enabled Nokia Chat social instant messaging application.
Mobile Social Networking" offers insight into trends, social networking
features, drivers, barriers and includes detailed descriptions of solutions and
market players, with special focus on business models. It also provides
recommendations to all major players and shipment and revenue forecasts per
region and per location-based social networking type. It forms part of the
Location Aware Services, Consumer Mobility and Mobile Content Research Services.