Facebook & Mobile - The high watermark of mobile usage...

There are numerous interesting metrics that can be picked out of the advertising and notifications regularly displayed on the home pages of social media sites such as Facebook. Take for instance this one: this morning I saw a new notification in the "Highlights" column on my default Facebook home page that said "Len, 29 of your friends are using the Mobile Facebook Ap for iPhone."

I looked down at my phone momentarily and then thought, well, if I'm number 30 in that list and I have just over 300 friends on Facebook, then at least 10% of my friends on Facebook have iPhones. There's probably some other percentage out there that use things like the Android Phone or the Blackberry Storm and maybe access Facebook directly through a mobile browser like my brother. In any case, the fact that at least 10% of my friends are actively engaged with social media and content on their mobile devices means that both, social media and mobile are no marginal but quickly becoming mainstream. If I accept that, then I have to accept the fact that mobile email, or email checked on a mobile device, is also quickly becoming the norm rather than the exception and I had better be aware of the quirks and nuances of mobile messaging.

—Len Shneyder
Dir. of Partner Relations
& Industry Communications