Activate Email 
INDUSTRIES
January 23, 2008
Viral Marketing of Mobile Content Witnesses Growth in Europe
By Calvin Azuri, TMCnet Contributor
MoConDi announced that its MeYou platform continues to expand its global reach in Europe and the U.S. The platform enables users to share content purchases with friends and social networks. The process yields large incentives for users, through mobile devices. According to the company, the solution will be hugely popular in 2008.
According to a research finding by ABI Research (News - Alert), mobile marketing will grow to more than $24 billion worldwide in 2013 from just $1.8 billion in 2007. A significant chunk of the marketing expenditure is attributed to the sale of other mobile products and services. This, essentially, offers a huge opportunity for companies to implement one of the web's most economical form of online user acquisition - viral marketing.
"Viral marketing will be one of the biggest innovations in mobile commerce over the next several years as the mobile ecosystem gets serious about driving profits and efficiencies in retail," JT Klepp, President of MoConDi, was quoted as saying in the report.
From Facebook’s (News - Alert) controversy-creating service titled “Project Beacon”, it is evident that the potential for viral marketing will continue to grow at a fast pace. The project enables the entire network to view the items that members purchased through 44 participating retailers. MoConDi’s MeYou platform, unlike Beacon, necessitates an opt-in. The platform is now available in Italy and might reach the United States this year.
Interesting MeYou trends:
- Research data reveals 60 percent of MeYou users have purchased mobile content in the past
- 64% percent of users send recommendations, while 24% of these go on to make a purchase
- On a whole, more than 1.6 million users have received a MeYou recommendation from a friend in the past six months
- Average costs of carrier mobile storefront marketing have come down by 20% after the use of MeYou
MeYou offers users rewards for purchases and recommendations. The purchases they make will also offer them redeemable points. Typically, users send mobile message recommendations to their friends. The recommendation comprises a message, a download link for the content and a link for MeYou application installation. This is how viral marketing works.
With the application, users can gain access to more than 5,000 pieces of content through the MoConDi content management and delivery platform. As part of the contracts in-conjunction with Italian operators Tre (H3G) and Vodafone (News - Alert), MeYou has turned out to be one of the primary channels for sales of games and content for these companies. A 2006 gaming study by Nokia (News - Alert) showed that around 79 percent of users would try a game demo whenever a friend recommends it.
Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page .
INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO East 2008 (ITEXPO (News - Alert) (News - Alert)) is going on now in sunny Miami, Florida! For the latest show news, please visit Rich Tehrani’s blog.
