British mobile and online flirting service Flirtomatic now has more than one million registered users, of which more than half are mobile users.

In February 2007, Handmade Mobile Ltd.'s Flirtomatic had 225,000 registered users and, when compared with over one million registered users today, it represents an almost 350 percent growth within an 18-month period. Flirtomatic claims that the current figure of 500,000 means that it has cemented its place as Britain's favorite mobile social networking service.

"We are looking for markets where we believe Flirtomatic will be a mass market offering," said Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, London. "How can we judge that before market entry?

"Keys are the size of the mobile Internet, the clear trend towards flat rate data charges from operators, and the ability to market through on-deck placement with operator portals, on-deck advertising with operator portals, and a thriving off-deck market," he said. "We are seeing a very different mix of these from market to market."

Handmade Mobile is considering expanding Flirtomatic to other markets around the world.

"The U.S. is on our radar for sure," Mr. Curtis said. "For markets which do not have majority use of English, we will always create local language versions."

Flirtomatic runs on a free-to-consumers, ad-supported model.

Strongbow Cider, Smirnoff, T-Mobile, O2, Citroen and Diet Coke are among the brands that have advertised on Flirtomatics' mobile platform.

"Banners and text are the simplest ad buy, but we have also done more complex integrated campaigns which have been very successful," Mr. Curtis said. "For example, we created a profile for Strongbow Cider and a free virtual gift pint which linked to real vouchers that could be downloaded to the handset.

"Redemption levels were much higher than targeted and users sent 348,000 pints to each other in less than three weeks!" he said.

Since launching in June 2006, Flirtomatic has experienced growth not only in terms of users, but also in a geographical sense, with the service's expansion into Germany in July.

Flirtomatic has also enjoyed significant revenue growth.

Since August 2007, Handmade Mobile claims that Flirtomatic's revenue has skyrocketed by 475 percent.

This is all proof of the fact that mobile social networks are really starting to emerge to challenge their traditional online counterparts.

More importantly, it's evidence that money can and is being made from mobile, which has been a key element missing from online social networks.

Launched in 2006, Flirtomatic is a real-time, high-capacity multimedia messaging platform.

Targeted at young adults -- with 75 percent of users between 18 and 30 years old) -- Flirtomatic operates a free and uninterrupted service across the Web and mobile that enables users to flirt, meet new people and have fun online.

Consumers have the ability to discover members on the basis of their preferences, interests, location and other information stored in their multimedia user profile.

In May, Flirtomatic users were sending one million messages a day, generating 21 million Web page views and 130 million WAP page views.

"The best marketing method for us is WAP advertising," Mr. Curtis said. "By a long way, we get the best cost of acquisition here, which is very reassuring, as we sell it too!"