Social networkers yearn for WAP technology: ad:tech delegate

By Giselle Abramovich

April 17, 2008

Fruits of hard work

SAN FRANCISCO – Social networks are a big theme at ad:tech San Francisco. And guess what these networks claim that their members are asking for? Mobile features.

One such company is Kiwibox. Mobile Marketer associate editor Giselle Abramovich interviewed Kiwibox vice president of sales Mike Howard to get the scoop on social networks and their mobile plans. Here's the discussion:

What is the current state of mobile?
We see a lot of users are yearning for WAP technology, but they are doing a lot interaction with social sites using SMS.

Additionally, our users are getting more integrated phones like iPhones and BlackBerries.

We want to provide members access to Kiwibox in whatever way they want. We want to make their experience comfortable and therefore we are launching a WAP site with the help of Burst Media. We expect to have a WAP version of our site by the end of the second quarter.

Where do you see mobile in the next five years?
There will be more mobile traffic than there is on the Web. Everything we do on the Web is possible on mobile. We will be where Asia and Europe are today. People are already programmed knowing that they don’t have to wait to access stuff. That notion will stick.

So can you tell me about Kiwibox?
Kiwibox was founded in 1999 and it is the first social networking and online magazine site where people can discover and share stuff with their peers. We are growing virally as we just hit 2 million registered members on the site.

Membership is completely free, so we have sponsorships and advertising opportunites on the site and plan to do the same for our mobile site. Burst Media will aid us in taking our existing online sponsorships and include them into the users mobile experience.

Some of our advertisers are Procter & Gamble, beauty companies like CoverGirl, Sprite and Coca-Cola, Adidas and Dell.

We are doing a lot of work with Sony BMG too, because they love our audience

We are committed to providing our teens with quality information at the right time.

What is mobile’s role at ad:tech?
There was the mobile corner at the back and I think mobile is just starting to gain acceptance.

Ad:tech is a great place for those who aren’t in the mobile space to talk to those who are and maybe result in partnerships or just education. I saw a good amount of mobile booths and I am excited about the next few years.

Comments on "Social networkers yearn for WAP technology: ad:tech delegate "

1. Sarah Keefe says:

   April 17, 2008 at 5:11am

   It'll be great to see another excellent social networking site move to mobile. We have quite a few community sites of one type or another using our mobile analytics solution to track who's visiting their site and most importantly for them, measure conversion rates from mobile advertising campaigns.
   
   If you are interested in seeing how this is done, take a look at the Tapatap case study at www.bango.com/analytics