How the cellphone is reinventing social computing

The importance of social mobility

Article published in the Review (Spring 2010 issue)
Author: Davey Winder

The latest research into mobile social networking suggests that it is taking off – but only among the younger generation. So what factors are preventing its wider adoption?

Both cellphone use and social technology participation have been embraced by ‘Generation Next’, the first wave of consumers to be totally immersed in cellphone culture and to truly ‘get’ social networking and applications. Combine the two and you end up with a revolution in social computing.

According to the ‘Smartphone Future 2010–2014’ report from Portio Research, smartphones accounted for 13.8% of all handsets shipped during 2009. That’s set to increase to 24.9% by the end of 2014, with huge growth expectations for emerging markets such as India and Nigeria. This fast-expanding sector of the market is having a knock-on effect in terms of the adoption of social computing, with consumers eager to soak up the culture of social networking and media sharing via their high-end handsets.

Indeed, ComScore reckons that, of the 1.1 billion people who actively use the Internet around the globe, 738 million are regular users of social networking sites – about 67%. If you add in regular users of other social computing activities such as blogging, the figure rises to 76%. Some 42% of consumer online time is now spent using social networking services, but it is the online access methodology that is most interesting of all.

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