virtual gifting » mobilegroove

Mobile social networks (or at least the clever ones) are mapping out business models that allow them to transition from being meeting places for communities to being marketplaces for commerce. It's early days and there are no easy answers - all the more reason to attend Mobile Advertising & the Rise of Social Networking: What does it mean for Brands, Agencies and Service Providers?, a Knowledge & Networking Seminar organized by AIME, (The Association for Interactive Media and Entertainment), this Thursday in London. The seminar provides the perfect opportunity to explore key learnings with industry pioneers and network over drinks. (The event begins at 6:30 p.m. and wraps up around 11 p.m. More details on the program and venue here.) One company I look forward to hearing is Flirtomatic, a pioneer mobile flirting service that has had great success monetizing mobile users through conversation with added fun and great content such as virtual flowers and kisses. The company recently extended its reach to enable members to give the objects of their affection real gifts including chocolate and sexy underwear. As Matt Dicks, Commercial Director for Flirtomatic, put it in an interview with AIME's Andrew Darling: The approach to mobile advertising is about marketing entertainment and content services as part of its mobile social network. "It's about integrating ads and brands into the fabric of a social networking service - enabling premium gifting between users and using advertising to support content."

Back with an in-depth look at Singapore-based BuzzCity - a major player in the mobile social network space whose ad-funded myGamma community targets blue-collar workers and the newly-connected middle class across emerging markets - and an exclusive interview with KF Lai, BuzzCity CEO. I caught up KF for a long overdue briefing to connect the dots in his ambitious strategy to - as he puts it - "build the number one mobile portal and Long Tail ad network in emerging markets and possibly the world." BuzzCity's keen focus on serving the "unwired" in developing countries - people whose only access to the Internet is their mobile phone - made business sense from the start, allowing it to chalk up 3+ million users across 80 countries (as of December 2008). But it's the company's clever approach to mobile advertising that makes it the one to watch. Expect a raft of announcements kicking off at Mobile World Congress (MWC), allowing app and content providers to get more reach (and thus more revenues). This is all I can say under NDA, but think 'social graph meets viral-marketing' and you're definitely on the right track.