Category Archives: Social Networking
BMW launches Qype for iDrive
Qype, a European consumer reviews site, has struck a deal with car giant BMW to bring Qype‘s app to BMW drivers across the UK.
Qype allows consumers access to over two million reviews across 166,000 cities worldwide, covering everything from bars and beauticians to plumbers and primary schools. Continue reading
Myriad helps Vodafone Essar give social networking to India
Rating: It’s all over SMS & USSD – so it’s affordable
Now here’s a good way to introduce social networking to the masses – literally. In developing countries, not only do most consumers lack an ability to get onto the standard (HTML-based) web, they frequently can’t afford the tariffs to subscribe to a mobile web equivalent either. However, there’s a gap in the market which the Myriad Group believes it is able to exploit by providing mobile network operators will the ability to deliver social networking and messaging services over SMS (text) and USSD (operator messaging). Thanks to a recently announced deal with Vodafone Essar, the pair hope to enable over 143 million subscribers across India get all social. Continue reading
Social media apps could be a mobile phone’s greatest asset
Rating: New research from InSites Consulting confirms Brits hooked on it
A study carried out on behalf of InSites Consulting has found that some 73 per cent of the UK’s population now use social media sites – which equates to some 37 million people. Facebook is the most popular – proving the wisdom behind Vodafone’s launching of the 555 Blue handset (see our previous story here). The findings have been linked to recent remarks made by Nikki Moore, founder of girlgeekchic.com, who suggested that the attraction of being able to access social media sites on the go has made smartphones more desirable. But emphasising support for Facebook might be the wrong tack – maybe it should be Twitter instead. While to gain an advantage over rivals, handsets shipped in the UK, handsets should have a Linked-In app built-in Continue reading
Don’t shoot the (BlackBerry) Messenger
Rating: IM isn’t to blame for London rioting
Amid calls for the BlackBerry (Instant) Messaging BBM service to be shut down because it is being utilised by London’s youth to co-ordinate anti-social behaviour, uSwitch.com’s Alex Buttle says you shouldn’t shoot the messenger. Quite appropriate really. It would be foolish to blame ocial media and private messaging services such as Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger for the ills in the UK’s capital city. There’s no escaping the fact that mobile phones have redefined the way people communicate and, as the spread of rioting has now demonstrated, they are proving to be a powerful mobilisation tool. Continue reading
OpenFeint shows Android is force in gaming
Rating: Adds 230 games to its network in 2 months
Just two months after OpenFeint came to the Android sector, the company has added 230 games to its Android portfolio and is now present on 24 of the Top 100 paid and free games on Android. Initially there were doubts that the Android platform could ever compete with iOS in mobile gaming. By bringing a lot of heavy-hitting games and helping to socialise heaps of Android titles, OpenFeint has proved Android can succeed. Furthermore, OpenFeint has released it next generation mobile social network and it’s now live in all 700 Android games. With this Android-first release, iOS games won’t see the new features until this Fall. Continue reading
How the Buzz disaster trained Google to do better with Google+
Google+ is still new enough that many of the posts on it are about the network itself: “hey, I’m on Google+!”. That certainly mirrors the behavior of the early days of Google Buzz – almost every message sent through it was alone the lines of “hey, I’m on Google Buzz!”. But Buzz was a massive failure – and it seems that as a direct result, the launch of Google+ has been handled much better. Continue reading
PapayaMobile leads the Android gaming charge into China
One of the things that has emerged from analysis of the global application market is this: the most popular categories of apps tend to be the same regardless of market or region. And, in general, the most popular category of app around the world is Gaming applications. The underlying opportunity here is that if you’ve developed a popular game for (say) America, there’s no reason it can’t also sell in APAC. And so PapayaMobile is announcing a “Gateway to China” program for Android developers looking to expand to China. Continue reading
World’s “most insulting” mobile game makes good
Last week, I published an article ragging on a newly released mobile game called Top Girl from a developer called CrowdStar. My review was… not positive. And today CrowdStar has announced how well this game has performed. And it has done so well that CrowdStar the right, if it wants, to come over to where I live and shout “eat it, sucka!” through my mailbox. Continue reading
Mobile social network tackles SMS spam in India
India has some pretty severe problems with SMS spam – so bad that an actual Government minister has complained in Parliament about being woken up in the middle of the night by spam texts. Today one of the best known mobile social networks in India, the text-based SMS GupShup, has announced a new application for operators and mobile marketers that could help curb the tide. Continue reading
GetJar admits app recommendation doesn’t really work [UPDATED]
GetJar is one of the biggest app stores in the world – and it’s the very largest that allows any phone to download apps. No matter your device, you’ll find something that will work on it at GetJar. Today it has announced that it is building social features into the GetJar portal using Facebook. Continue reading
Mobile gaming: Kiloo says “show me the money!”
PapayaMobile is a mobile social network centered around Android gaming – and today leading mobile game developer Kiloo has announced it will be launching its Android games through the PapayaMobile network. Continue reading
Think your partner plays too many mobile games? Think again.
An interesting study has come out of massive mobile social network/gaming platform MocoSpace. It analysed anonymous user data from over 1500 social gamers to see what the differences are between men and women when they were gaming on-line through their mobiles. Continue reading
Osama’s death and Royal Wedding add up to mobile jackpot
When I came into work this morning, I had no intention of writing about how the Royal Wedding and the death of Osama Bin Laden had been a boon for telecoms operators all over the world… but the flood of statistics coming into my inbox from Sybase, Yahoo! and Tesco said otherwise. Continue reading
Mobile social networking: Myriad-Telefónica deal finally sees light of day
Almost one year ago exactly, GoMo News reported on the highly lucrative deal that Myriad Group AG signed with vast global operator group Telefónica. The 5-year partnership would see Myriad providing embedded social networking software to Telefónica‘s Latin American subscribers; which number over 140 million. Continue reading
FreshNetworks does impossible social networking task for Telefónica
Most businesses have a social media strategy these days – especially since the advent of Twitter, it has become obvious that social networking is the most direct (and, in some cases, most effective) way of engaging your customer base. But what happens when your customer based is a vast, multi-lingual entity spread out across a multitude of nationalities? This is the problem faced by the Telefónica group in Europe – and they’ve brought in social media agency FreshNetworks to solve it. Continue reading
