Juniper Research: User generated content revenues to reach $7.3 billion by 2013

According to the Juniper Research’s report titled “Mobile User Generated Content: Dating, Social Networking & Personal Content Delivery 2008-2013 (Second Edition),” ad-funded social networks will provide the bulk of revenues in the mobile user-generated content (UGC) space by 2013.

The report says that the total value of the market — which includes social networking, dating and personal content delivery (PCD) services — will rise from nearly $1.1 billion in 2007 to more than $7.3 billion in 2013, with most of the money coming from advertising. Furthermore, Juniper argues that social networking will overhaul dating to become the largest revenue generating segment during next year.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden says that in order to achieve truly mass adoption, it would be necessary to offer free membership and then to augment that with advertising and the sale of premium content.

Other findings from the report include:

• The number of active users of mobile social networking sites is expected to rise from 54 million in 2008 to nearly 730 million in 2013
• The Far East and China region will be most popular in terms of mobile user number for mobile social networking and PCD throughout the forecast period, but the Indian Sub Continent will become the largest region for mobile dating services by 2010
• There will be more than 9 billion downloads from PCD sites by 2013, of which 32% will be ad-supported

More information about Juniper’s report is available from their website.