tag = "Ahonen"

We love mobile here at the Communities Dominate blog. As mobile telecoms is the fastest-growing of the major global industries (ie those worth 100 Billon dollars or more), I do like to call mobile the "magical money-making machine." But if you are considering getting involved in this, the most lucrative part of the digital revolution, then where to go? Ringing tones or SMS or location-based services or what? I'll tell you what. Look at that part of this industry - the subsector - which is itself growing the fastest. And that is beyond any doubt, mobile social networking.

So its time to take stock of how mobile social networking is doing today. Last year we reported that mobile social networking was the world's fastest-growing billion-dollar business opportunity and various sources reported impressive numbers, like that there were 148 million users (eMarketer 2008) who generated 6 Billion dollars of revenues globally in 2007 (Informa). And many sources are now saying social networking on mobile phones is the first mass-market killer application for 3G mobile telecoms, such as Vodafone, Nokia and T-Mobile have been saying recently.

I'm doing this just quickly for followers of this blog. I came up with 6 functioning (ie money-making) business models for social networking when used on mobile. I presented them into the public domain this Monday at MoMo Jakarta. Each of the six are of course in my Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking, but not like this as a list. The six ways to make money on mobile social networking are:

1 - subscriptions (also works on the web)
2 - advertising (also works on the web)
3 - personalization (idea from Habbo Hotel Finland)
4 - Revenue-share for content creating person wiht user-generated content (popularized by SeeMeTV)
5 - Gifting (idea from Cyworld South Korea)
6 - Ego-services (idea from Flirtomatic UK)

After about 18 months, this is Tomi’s second visit to MobileMonday… still energetic and insightful, Tomi delivered his presentation titled “New Business Opportunities out of Mobile Social Networking”

So, here’s some key pointers (Get the sides of the presenetation from here > http://sites.google.com/site/mobilemondayid/download-slides)

Recession = it’s time to copy… :-) copy proven and successful concept from other companies/countries/operators… launch it!

Great community services are built upon 4 principles: Connectivity, Culture, Commerce, Community. The ability to combine these attributes is the key to exciting services. Example: Sony Pictures Sofia’s Diary combines Connectivity (mobile voting via SMS) and Culture (teen’s interest in social/romantic dilemma) to create interactive mobisodic soap opera.

I heard from my friend James Peh and he told me of his latest venture, Frenclub. Frenclub (yes, note spelling, it is not Friend Club, its shortned to Frenclub) is a mobile social network here in Asia in several countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Frenclub has the typical friends-oriented social networking such as profiles, chat, etc. They work on a very simple level of the technology. You don't need 3G, these work on basic SMS. They do have an age limit of 18, but younger members may join with parental approval.

Pearls Vol 2 is an eBook/mobile book, by Tomi Ahonen,171 pages in length, with 50 case studies of the best successes of real services launched around the world in social networking for mobile. It has all the most obvious brands and names, like Mixi, Mobage Town, Cyworld, Flirtomatic, Itsmy, MTV, SeeMeTV, CNN iReport, Twitter, Qi, Habbo etc. The 50 Pearls include 10 that I have never shown in the public domain and they 50 Pearls cover 10 countries on 3 continents, both in the Industrialized World and the Developing World. Check out the sample pages at http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/PearlsV2.html

Ok. Its four years since our book Communities Dominate Brands came out as the first business book on social networking. In the book we discuss the opportunity and some of the early business models and pioneering companies. That was a time before Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. How can you monetize this opportunity? We have seen the rapid growth of mobile social networking, and just like we predicted in the book, those "digital communities" or "user-generated content", or "citizen journalism" or "web 2.0" or indeed, "social networking" is now bigger on mobile than on the internet, by service revenues.

So 2009 seems to be the year of the Tomi Ahonen ebook ha-ha. But these Pearls really are great stories and the eBooks write themselves. So yes, following the wonderfully warm reception of Pearls Vol 1: Mobile Advertising, I now offer Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking. My ninth book is also my third in eBook format. Like Vol 1, this too is 171 pages in length, formated for the small screen so you can read it off your iPhone or Blackberry or smartphone (or any ebook reader like Kindle or your laptop obviously).

The Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009 is a 171 page eBook, in 14 point font size and A5 page size, and only 1 megabyte in size, so you can store it on your smartphone and have all the stats and figures and charts at your fingertips. The Almanac has 70 tables and charts and just about ever detail you could hope to have.

The Almanac covers the mobile industry, subscription and unique subscribers, handsets including separately smartphones, consumers, SMS text messaging, mobile internet, mobile music, mobile gaming, TV and video on mobile, mobile social networking, and many other content and service areas in shorter analysis; as well as the 60 most significant mobile telecoms countries, the 20 largest mobile operator groups and the 25 most advanced mobile markets.

It is available electronically for you, today. And best of all, it costs only 9.99 Euros. So check out the information and ordering page at this link: Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009 [http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/almanac.html]

The Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009 is a 171 page eBook, in 14 point font size and A5 page size, and only 1 megabyte in size, so you can store it on your smartphone and have all the stats and figures and charts at your fingertips. The Almanac has 70 tables and charts and just about ever detail you could hope to have.

The Almanac covers the mobile industry, subscription and unique subscribers, handsets including separately smartphones, consumers, SMS text messaging, mobile internet, mobile music, mobile gaming, TV and video on mobile, mobile social networking, and many other content and service areas in shorter analysis; as well as the 60 most significant mobile telecoms countries, the 20 largest mobile operator groups and the 25 most advanced mobile markets.

It is available electronically for you, today. And best of all, it costs only 9.99 Euros. So check out the information and ordering page at this link: Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009 [http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/almanac.html]

Tomi Ahonen has recently published his book sharing 50 pearls (advice/ideas/tips) on Mobile Advertisement. Tomi has in past shared his pearls and ideas in many forums in public domain so this is a good chance for anyone into Mobile advertisement to get their hands on. The book costs 9.99 euros so its not expensive if the topic interests you.