Disqus
A new Juniper Research report titled “Mobile User-Generated Content: Social Networking, Dating and Personal Content Delivery” has found that new revenue streams from event-based charging and advertising will help to push the value of the mobile dating and chatroom market to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013. This comes as a result of a burgeoning user-generated content (UGC) market that will reach $7.3 billion by the same time.
The report says that while subscription revenues will continue to contribute the bulk of service revenues over the next five years, an increasing number of dating companies have now switched to offering event-based charging, through products which offer free registration but levy charges when end-users wish to contact one another, or else offer virtual gifts for subscribers to send to other users.
The Juniper report also observed that mobile operators have become increasingly keen to offer services on-portal as part of their entertainment portfolios: Vodafone offers Dating Direct, while 3 UK has partnered with Flirtomatic.
Other findings from the report include:
- Less than 30% of mobile dating customers will be on flat-rate subscriptions by 2011.
- The Far East and China region is currently the largest region in terms of subscriber numbers, primarily due to the success of dating services in Japan.
- Advertising will provide the majority of mobile social networking revenues but less than one-third of all UGC revenues by 2013.
More information about Juniper’s report is available from their website.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
