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For those who have Android phones, mobile applications include features such as instant photo<br />
upload from Android to a MySpace profile and the ability to access information on user profiles.<br />
The application is also integrated with Shazam, which allows users to identify music to connect to<br />
music artists’ MySpace pages. 69 The MySpace mobile application for Blackberry allows users to<br />
use their mobile devices to send and receive MySpace mail, update their status, view and send<br />
bulletins, add comments and post photos. MySpace now has developed applications for Android,<br />
70<br />
Sidekick, iPhone and BlackBerry.<br />
Facebook also has expanded into mobile, allowing users to update their profiles from mobile<br />
devices and to be alerted when they receive messages from their friends. Facebook SMS allows<br />
users to receive notifications or update their status with text messages. According to mobile team<br />
engineer Wayne Chang, Facebook’s mobile user base expanded from 5 million to 15 million since<br />
the beginning of 2008. On the Facebook Blog, Facebook mobile team engineer Wayne Chang<br />
wrote that in the 24 hours after the site began allowing subscribers to comment on their friends’<br />
71<br />
status updates to the Facebook mobile site, users posted close to a million status comments.<br />
“People are hungry for interactive mobile features worldwide, and Facebook users are no<br />
exception,” he wrote.<br />
Facebook users can access its mobile site, m.facebook.com, which works on nearly any mobile<br />
browser worldwide, or if they have a smartphone they can access the extended site,<br />
x.facebook.com. Facebook’s mobile platform extends applications to phones with additional<br />
72<br />
applications for specific devices, such as Palm, Blackberry and iPhone. People can tag and<br />
upload photos and send Facebook invitations from their BlackBerry’s address book. Facebook’s<br />
mobile user base is growing faster than the website. 73<br />
Globally, the total value of the user-generated content (UGC) market, which includes social<br />
networking, online dating and personal content delivery (PCD) services, will increase from nearly<br />
$1.1 billion in 2008 to more than $7.3 billion in 2013, with social networking surpassing dating to<br />
become the largest revenue generating segment by 2009, according to a report by Juniper<br />
74<br />
Research The report also addresses the increasing significance played by advertising, which<br />
will account for nearly one-third of total revenues in the UGC space by the end of the forecast<br />
period, and more than half of mobile social networking revenues. 75 The number of active users<br />
of mobile social networking is expected to rise from 54 million in 2008 to nearly 730 million in<br />
2013 according to Juniper. Juniper also predicts that by 2013, there will be more than 9 billion<br />
downloads from PCD sites, of which 32% will be ad-supported. 76<br />
69<br />
Zeman, Eric. Android Market Gouged of Apps, But Mobile MySpace Gets Added. Over the Air:<br />
InformationWeek’s Mobile Weblog. 20 October 2008.<br />
70<br />
Ibid.<br />
71<br />
Chang, Wayne. A Rush for Change. The Facebook Blog. 10 November 2008.<br />
72<br />
Ibid.<br />
73<br />
Winterbottom, Daniel. Social networking has potential to drive mobile revenues, but also to add to network<br />
woes. Informa. 19 November 2007<br />
74<br />
Press Release: Advertising to Fuel Mobile Social Networking Growth as UGC Revenues Reach $7.3bn by<br />
2013, Juniper Report Reveals. Juniper Research. 16 September 2008.<br />
75<br />
Ibid.<br />
76 Ibid.<br />
www.3G<strong>Americas</strong>.org February 2009 Page 28
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