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More Folks Going to Facebook and MySpace on Their Phones

by Terrence O'Brien on December 24, 2008 at 09:26 AM

Social Networking on Cell Phones Explodes
We all know that the next frontier is mobile Internet and connectivity, but so far, it has been slow to catch on. Blame it on lackluster handsets, poorly designed mobile sites, and prohibitively high data costs. But things may be changing as new market research reveals that in the UK, mobile Internet use has exploded, especially in the realm of social networking services.

British cellular provider Orange started tracking numbers for mobile social networking earlier this year and has seen a boom that is almost unbelievable. Between June and October of this year, Orange saw a rise in monthly users on these services of 277 percent. In the short time that Orange has been tracking visits to social sites, the number of customers using Facebook, MySpace and other services from their phones has climbed to 640,000.

Of course, in the UK, mobile providers have started strongly promoting mobile Internet and integration with social networking sites. They've also begun aggressively slashing prices on data rates. Similar steps are starting to be taken by US providers, but we've still got some catching up to do. [From: Guardian, Via: Textually.org]

Tags: facebook, mobile internet, MobileInternet, orange, social networking, SocialNetworking

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