Mobile Social Networking: Beyond the PC

There’s more to mobile social networking than just extending the desktop experience to the palm of the user’s hand. Mobile Marketer chatted with Forrester Research analyst Vidya Lakshmipathy about the matter, which is the focus of a recent Forrester study called “Social Computing Goes Mobile.”

According to the research, mobile social activity can be broken into five categories: mobile social networking, media sharing, microblogging, social mapping and mobile tagging. These services, the article says, will change the mobile social networking landscape this year.

When questioned about the most important finding in the report, Lakshmipathy said the key takeaway is that mobile social networking is not merely an extension of the PC-based services. The way to success, she said, is to take advantage of mobile’s ability to provide users with added value when they’re away from their PCs, while at the same time allowing them to use a PC for the tasks that require “heavy lifting.”

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.