A mobile social networking service from Japan has been launched in the UK.
Mobikade,
popular among Japan's urban youth, enables friends to provide each other with a
constant stream of where-I-am and what-I'm-doing pseudo-news via a website
accessible from their mobiles.
Every action earns participants points, which can be used to send text
messages to friends, or they can be saved and entered in a monthly prize draw.
Users can also download games, mostly puzzles like Sudoku.
The service faces a number of hurdles before it is successful in the UK,
however. "A direct consumer play could be a problem," Eden Zoller, principal
analyst at
Ovum's consumer
practice, told
vnunet.com.
"The brand is unknown in the UK, so they might do better allying with a known
mobile or online brand."
A safer bet for success would be mobile features added to an existing popular
social networking service, added Zoller.
Furthermore, in Japan, where conventional PC adoption is lower, accessing the
web from a mobile is more established than it is in the UK.
UK mobile operators have struggled for years to increase the data proportion
of their revenues, which are still only a tiny percentage compared to voice
traffic.
In Japan,
Sogo
Shosha ITOCHU and
Excite
Japan, the companies behind Mobikade, fund the service principally from
advertising.
Because mobile web access is so popular in Japan, the mobile ad market grew
35 per cent last year to a value of £156m.
But this model is largely unproven outside Japan and advertising could be
turn-off for UK users, according to Zoller.
"In the context of social networking, advertising is even more sensitive.
Social networking is inherently personal and people are possessive of their
pages and see advertising as intrusive," she said. "In short, they will
struggle."
Mobikade's owners expect that the mushrooming popularity of social networking
sites, such as
Facebook,
MySpace
and
LinkedIn,
combined with the universality of mobile phones, will make Mobikade a roaring
success.
"My aim is to successfully introduce Japanese mobile strategies to the UK and
Europe. Mobikade is so cool it will change the lives of mobile users," said Atul
Sasane, head of new business at
Global
Network Solutions, the European arm of Sogo Shosha ITOCHU.
"We will use this experience to bring in more innovative businesses from
Japan to Europe."
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