I had the opportunity to catch up on some reading, and yesterday three articles caught my eye: “Social Networking overtakes email”, “Social Networking tops mobile search queries”, and the third a mobile SNS survey on the effects of social networking.

The first article states that as an activity, social networking is now more popular than email, and in the US, mobile social networking grew 156%. Of the 55.8M US mobile web users, 10.6M visit social networks on their cell phone.

The second article reports that “Social networking is now the number one area of interest among mobile web users.” Not surprising, Facebook and MySpace top the list, but the article mentions how a mobile-tailored social network (like MobaMingle) can generate two to three times more usage minutes per user than Facebook mobile or MySpace mobile. Openwave’s CEO was quoted as saying, “The amount of time users spend on mobile social networking is eye-opening”.

Since launching MobaMingle back in September, we strongly believed a mobile-tailored SNS could provide a compelling user experience that can co-exist with PC based SNS services (even those who provide mobile access). MobaMingle was built and optimized for the mobile user experience and in looking at our user statistics, I feel strongly that we’re providing sticky, attractive content to the growing masses of mobile internet users.

The last article shows some interesting and amusing numbers from a survey of mobile SNS users. 73% responded that their cell phone is the most important device in their social life. And 45% admitted they have used their cell phone to break up with their partner (mostly by text).

What’s it all mean? Mobile internet is growing. Mobile SNS is strong. Attractive mobile content and mobile behavior is not the same as for wired internet. Priceless.

Lara Farrar wrote a nice article about cell phone novels and included in depth information both about our business in Japan as well as our entry in to the US market. She even took the time to interview one of our MobaMingle writers for the story. Check out the article on CNN.com (”Cell phone stories writing new chapter in print publishing”)

I’ve been fascinated with the progress and popularity of our MobaStory cell phone novel feature. While our site in Japan has over 500,000 novels, here in the US (in terms of percent of users who write a novel) we are actually exceeding our numbers in Japan.

As the US market grows and more young Americans adopt mobile internet technology, the demand for digital books will definitely be strong. Kindle is currently the #1 free book application on iTunes, so no doubt there is strong demand for technology that enables reading digital books while on the go.

If you’re curious about this new literary genre, come check it out on Mobamingle. Not only are there 1000’s of novels to read, but we also provide the tools to easily create your first cell phone novel complete with book cover design, table of contents, chapters, writer profile, member reviews, and rankings.

We recently received some great coverage from the Mobile Industry Review as they highlighted us as their “Mobile 2.0 Service of the week”.  Check out the article titled “MobaMingle – a Japanese mobile internet success story expanding internationally”.

Today we officially launched our mobile pet game, MobaCritters.  This newest addition to our game lineup allows members to adopt a virtual pet with the goal of keeping your pet happy through exercise, games, and “cleaning up”.  The happier your pet the more likely you are to earn gems, which allows users to unlock new pets in new colors.  We’ve included social networking features as well so users can interact with other MobaMingle members through pet challenges and races.  Not only will you have fun raising your pet, you’ll enjoy the positive feedback you get from your new friend.  Stay tuned for future announcements as we continue to add more games and features to our site. 

I often find myself re-reading a ComScore press release from Feb 2008 titled, “New Study Shows that Heavy Clickers Distort Reality of Display Advertising Click-Through Metrics”.  Their study revealed there is a small segment of internet users responsible for over half of advertisement clicks.  Yet these “heavy clickers” are not representative of the total online US population and behave very differently.  While this article focused on online internet advertisement clickers, is the same true for mobile ad clickers? 

We do a bit of mobile advertising here at MobaMingle, and it’s interesting to study the traffic through various ad networks, both here in the US and abroad.  By combining what we know from each ad click together with data we collect from mobile and user surveys, we are learning a lot about heavy mobile clickers that (as I mentioned in a previous blog post) many of the market research firms neglect.

So if you’re thinking of ramping up a mobile advertising campaign, keep this in mind.  Running a mobile survey is easy, and the handful of questions you ask will teach you a lot about who is likely to click your ads.

TechCrunch had some very nice things to say today about MobaMingle in their article MobaMingle adds a Japanese flavor to mobile social networks. Check it out!

Did you read this article? Virtual affair leads to real divorce for UK couple. Apparently the husband was having a virtual affair with another avatar in Second Life. And then his real life wife found out.

The article describes how emotionally invested people are becoming in their virtual identities.

One key factor we are focus on at MobaMingle is how well our members take to our virtual world and the style of our avatars. I just completed a mobile survey of our members and was amazed at the high response rate. What is clear, both through the activity I see on our site and through the survey results, our users love their avatars. They are desperate for MobaGold (our virtual currency) to constantly update, change and customize their look.

Our Suggestion Box is full of avatar ideas as users want to decorate their avatars to reflect their personality, physical traits, interests, hobbies, moods, style, and likes. They are certainly keeping our artists busy.

It’s great to not only see virtual worlds gaining in popularity, but also the enthusiasm of creating and maintaining a persona through one’s avatar. Come join us at MobaMingle!

MobaMingle appears in Wall Street Journal for the second time!

WSJ just published their 2008 “The 50 Women to Watch” and DeNA founder and CEO, Tomoko Namba, was among this select group of emerging global leaders. The annual list highlights women around the world “poised to play key roles in their companies, industries or business in general in the coming year”.

The article highlights MobaMingle as the focus of Namba’s push to extend her success outside of Japan.

National Novel Writing Month

This year is the 10^th anniversary of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and this time it is mobile! MobaMingle is pleased to be the exclusive mobile partner for NaNoWriMo and will be providing cell phone novel writing space and support to all NaNoWriMo participants, .

As a sponsor, MobaMingle supports the creative endeavors of thousands of writers as well as NaNoWriMo’s Young Writer’s program, which encourages teachers and K-12 students to have “monkey-barrel loads of fun” while improving their writing skills, improving literacy and enhancing self confidence.

National Novel Writing Month was founded in 1999 by Chris Baty and 21 friends who had pretty guileless ambitions:

…we wanted to write novels for the same dumb reasons twentysomethings start bands. Because we wanted to make noise. Because we didn’t have anything better to do. And because we thought that, as novelists, we would have an easier time getting dates than we did as non-novelists.

Fast forward ten years and Baty is now the chipper founder of a non-profit that welcomes over 110,000 eager writers from every continent (making National a bit of a misnomer) who throw themselves in the agony and ecstasy of producing some semblance of a novel in 30 days.

Many writers try NaNoWriMo for the thrill and challenge, while some draft out their New York Times Bestseller in November. Water for Elephants, the award-winning novel by Sara Gruen, began life as a Wrimo novel.

NaNoWriMo is a perfect match for MobaMingle since they have eager writers struggling to find a simple, elegant way to write a cell phone novel. MobaMingle’s novel feature has been tested by over 200,000 happy cell phone writers, forging it into the best mobile platform for NaNoWriMo authors.

MobaMingle has found a kindred spirit in NaNoWriMo and is pleased to sponsor a local organization with a shared global goal of making writing fun and accessible to everyone.

Interested in writing a cell phone novel for NaNoWriMo? Get the information you need here.

Halloween is a fun time at MobaMingle! Several new Halloween cell phone novels were written by our members in response to our “scary story” and “Halloween pranks” events. Our MobaWeen scavenger hunt is generating a ton of interest as well as some sleep deprived members. The costume contest is in full swing and to help, we created some cool Halloween avatar items and costumes. Here’s a glimpse at how some of our member’s are enjoying Halloween at mbmgl.com:

Come join us at mbmgl.com !!!