Social networking is now the number one area of interest among mobile web users according to new consumer research released by mobile software applications and infrastructure provider Openwave. Data based on the firm's Mobile Analytics product results indicate that Facebook and MySpace are the two top mobile search terms on both Google and Yahoo oneSearch, and "social networking" was also the top category among search terms. However, despite the popularity of traditional web-based social networking among wireless subscribers, Openwave reports that mobile-tailored social network MocoSpace actually attracted more of mobile web users' time: MocoSpace users spent an average of 6.05 minutes online, compared to 3.79 minutes on MySpace and 1.89 minutes on Facebook.  

"The amount of time users spend on mobile social networking is eye-opening," said Openwave CEO Ken Denman in an interview with FierceMobileContent. "We expect the trend will continue to evolve as penetration of smart devices occurs. Once people get their hands on these devices, they look at them as open Internet tools."

On Monday, Openwave also announced the release of Email MX 8.0, a carrier-scale mobile email solution based on the IMAP IDLE standard, which enables operators to offer email services to all of its handsets. According to Openwave, Email MX 8.0 also promises support for high-capacity mailboxes, more efficient processing and enhanced delivery options enabling message metadata retrieval with retrieving/loading the full message. "The nature of mobile messaging is that we're seeing an increasing transition to media in mailboxes, including video and music," Denman said. "High-capacity mailboxes are an important transition in this space."

For more on Openwave's mobile research results:
- read this release [1]

Related articles:
Openwave [2] debuts Passport, OpenMedia solutions
Openwave [3] launches contextual advertising solution
Openwave [4] intros contextual mobile merchandising