Mvolve Launches Social Network For Mobile Industry Professionals; Think Of LinkedIn On Steroids Aimed At The Mobile Space » mobilegroove

Conferences and trade shows are a good start, but the mobile industry needs a meeting place. This goes double for emerging market segments such as mobile search and social media. I founded MSearchGroove to provide individuals a thinking space, and now Dominic Bignall is gearing up to launch Mvolve, a breakthrough mobile industry business-to-business resource and networking service.

The value prop is all about see and been seen – but in this case members are connecting with significant others who matter to do business. From executive recruiting to RFPs, Mvolve covers the gamut of functionality that allows members to connect and collaborate. I had the pleasure of speaking with Dominic during the recent World Telemedia show in Prague. We recognized immediately that we shared a similar appreciation of Web 2.0 ideas and concepts – so much so that MSG has signed up to supply news and analysis to the community in the form of a daily news feed. Excellent preparation for a newsletter in the New Year…

More importantly, MSG has signed up as a Gold sponsor within the mobile search and mobile advertising categories. Companies can publish either a free listing in the industry directory, or they can take one of the various levels of paid sponsorship. Within each category, companies are displayed according to sponsorship level and chronological order.

This provides an incentive for companies to register early for a top-notch spot. And this message seems to have come across if you check out the calibre of the companies that have already signed up to paid listings pre-launch. MSG has negotiated with Mvolve to offer substantial discounts for prime spots, so please contact me directly. On a quick browse through the category, I see mobile search is still wide open. In mobile advertising, MSG leads a space with the likes of 4^th Screen, AdMob, JumpTap, Millennial Media and The Hyperfactory. BTW, few companies do just one thing, which is why Mvolve allows companies to select up to four sub categories that they want to be listed under.

For those of you thinking plain-vanilla social networking, think again. That you can have at Facebook. But as Dominic points out “if you really want to be time-effective and connect with people who share your business objectives, then you need to join an industry-specific vertical site.” And he has a point. The last weeks have seen a slew of sites launch bringing together everything from PR professionals to expectant mothers – and a virtual Long Tail of affinities and interest in-between. Someday soon, my social networking prediction will come true: There will be as many social networks as there are individuals. (A vision inspired by a chat with Barry Smyth, personalization guru and CEO of ChangingWorlds, a company specialized in dynamic on-device portal personalization.)

Dominic intends to take Mvolve a giant step further than existing telecoms social networks, by developing a proprietary platform designed from the ground up to empower mobile professionals. Customized features provide companies with highly effective and personal microsites where they can post white papers, case studies – the works. “It’s all about creating a central point within our industry globally where companies can introduce their capabilities to a centralized marketplace of industry professionals. This allows open dialogue between your business and the rest of the market.”

Look for some Mvolve features to be mobile, such as communications and alerts. This roadmap, along with a number of planned features in the pipeline, covers all the bases for Mvolve to become a premiere hub for the mobile industry. Companies that don’t see their niche listed as a sub-category on the site are welcome to request one and invite others to join. Come to think of it, mobile search could already be divided into multimodal, local, federated etc…

Dominic told me his vision is to create an “online, non-stop, cost-effective 24/7 3GSM conference.” It will be exciting to watch the community grow and be a part of the invigorating exchange.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing, Mobile Search, 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.