MySpace Has Most Popular Social App for Android
March 10, 2010
MySpace announced today that it has the most popular social app in the Android Market, and the third most popular app on Android altogether.
"Our deep integration with the Android platform is one of the reasons why we’ve seen a surge in usage," says MySpace's Scott Goldberg. "Unique to this app, we have three home screen widgets. One of them allows voice-enabled status updates. We also allow users to set MySpace photos as background wallpaper on their phone's home screen. Close integration with the native Android camera contributes to the customized experience and makes it easy for MySpace users to take, upload and share pictures of their friends out having fun."
"Even beyond Android, MySpace Mobile has also proven to be a very engaging experience across all platforms with 70% of MySpace Mobile users checking in three or more times per day," adds Goldberg. "As a nod to our popularity on the mobile web, MySpace was the fourth most popular mobile web destination according to Morgan Stanley’s report on The Mobile Internet in Dec. 2009. We have also found that the average MySpace Mobile user translates into a more engaged online user, dedicating more than an hour of additional time on the site per month."
Currently, looking at the Android Market's social category, MySpace Mobile is followed by Facebook for Android, Tweetcaster, AIM, and Truth or Dare. The top two most popular apps overall are Pandora and the Weather Channel.
One of the best parts about having the most popular slot in any category in the market is the visibility that comes along with that. Any user who gets a new Android device, and goes to look for apps, will see MySpace Mobile right at the top of the list, and that could could drive continued growth.
Mobile should play a key role in the continued success of MySpace. Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter are seeing big mobile gains themselves.
Are you surprised that MySpace has the most popular social app on Android? Share your thoughts.
Facebook And Twitter See Big Mobile Gains
March 4, 2010
Facebook and Twitter access via mobile browsers has grown by triple-digits in the past year, according to the latest research from comScore.
More than a quarter (30.8%) of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. Access to Facebook via mobile browser climbed 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter soared 347 percent.
"Social networking remains one of the most popular and fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile.
"Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser."
In January, 11.1 percent of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of the growth is due to smartphone owners accessing social networking sites on their mobile browsers. Just 6.8 percent of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.
Access to the most popular social networking sites via mobile browser continues to see significant growth. In January, 25. 1 million mobile users accessed Facebook, up 112 percent from the previous year. MySpace attracted 11.4 million users about half that of Facebook during the month.
Facebook's mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009, three months earlier than the Facebook audience climbed past that of MySpace on the PC-based Internet in May 2009.
Twitter, which has experienced solid growth in both mobile and PC-based visitation, attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January, up 347 percent over the previous year.
EU Caps Mobile Roaming Fees
March 2, 2010
European mobile phone operators are now required by the European Union to offer their customers limits on roaming fees.
Under the new regulation, mobile operators must offer their customers a monthly cut-off limit of 50 euros ($65) while they are surfing the Internet in other European nations. They can also offer their customers any other limit. Mobile users will now receive a warning when they hit 80 percent of the chosen limit.
"Protection against data roaming bill shocks is a useful step towards building customers' confidence to use mobile networks to surf the Internet when traveling around Europe," said Neelie Kroes, Digital Agenda Commissioner.
"Such confidence is essential if people and businesses are to use the Internet to its full potential".
Mobile customers have until July 1, 2010 to make a choice of what they want their cut-off limit to be. Mobile users who do make a choice will have a cut-off limit at 50 euros by default.
The EU says the move will guarantee more transparency and protections for consumers, and it will protect them from large bills for using data roaming services.
Stats Put Android Ahead Of iPhone In Eight States
February 28, 2010
There's encouraging news for Google in the Android vs. iPhone war. A company that's delivered more than one billion applications, games, ringtones, videos, and wallpapers to mobile users claims Android has topped the iPhone in terms of user concentration in eight states.
As the map below shows, these eight states are Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Then another five states are considered swing states, leaving the last 37 under Apple's control.
Obviously, these findings don't represent a true victory for Google even if they're absolute facts. The states associated with Android aren't all chockfull of people, and eight to 37 isn't a good ratio. Apple fans are sure to point out that Myxer is relatively new to the stats game, as well.
Still, the data indicates that Android's gained a lot of ground within a certain sample group, and that it's done so at a more than reasonable pace. What's more, Myxer's promised to update the map every quarter, meaning we'll get a better idea of how things are trending as time goes by.
According to Myxer, "A total of one million unique users from both the Android and iPhone operating systems were used to make this comparison."
