Mobile Social Networking Rubs Off On T-Mobile UK; Promoting Communication Between Members Will Likely Pay Off Big-Time » mobilegroove

Social networking sites are the source of inspiration for T-Mobile’s novel new tariff structure. The mobile operator has fine-tuned its ‘MyFaves’ tariff to give users unlimited calls and messages (that’s SMS and MMS) to 5 contacts on any network.

T-Mobile’s own research (no scope given) suggests that the average European user (let’s call her Ashley) spends 60 percent of her call time talking to five contacts or less. Ashley’s chosen 5 friends will be displayed on the front screen of her handset as either an icon or a photo (a nod to personalisation and some smart thinking from T-Mobile). Top marks to T-Mobile for figuring out that users want an application that lets them change the mix of ‘MyFaves’ friends so they aren’t stuck with the same friends for 18 months.

Vanessa Potts, Head of Postpaid at T-Mobile U.K. gave a lot of the credit for the idea to existing social networking sites and cool features that enable users to rank their friends. “People have a core group of friends, that they call on far more often…[MyFaves] is a way we can transfer some of the elements of social networking onto the mobile.” My guess is T-Mobile has started something here and the appeal won’t be limited to the MySpace generation. Social networking has caught on in the U.K. and the 30 and 40-somethings are hooked on Facebook, for example. Against this backdrop, the new tariff could actually drive mobile social networking since users will not mind being in constant contact with their members if they are exempt from charges to make the connection.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Mobile Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.