How social is the mobile web?

It's social networking's web--the rest of us just surf on it. In fact, social networking now generates almost 40 percent of worldwide mobile web traffic, even topping 60 percent in markets including the U.S., South Africa and Indonesia, according to browser development firm Opera Software's first "State of the Mobile Web" report. Basing its findings on the traffic patterns of more than 44 million Opera Mini browser users worldwide, Opera reports MySpace is the most visited mobile web destination in the U.S. market, followed in descending order by Google, mobile social networking service MocoSpace, Yahoo and Facebook. (Be sure to check out the Opera report in full: It's fascinating to contrast the U.S. with the other international markets under the microscope. In Indonesia, for example, the most-visited site is Friendster, which if memory serves was last popular in the U.S. at roughly the same time FDR was still in office.)

But percentages and actual numbers tell different stories. Compare the results of the Opera study with a recent Nielsen Mobile report that states only about 4.1 million U.S. wireless subscribers--just 1.6 percent of the overall U.S. mobile consumer population--actually browse and update social network profiles on mobile devices. According to Nielsen, the U.K. slightly edges the U.S. on a percentage basis, with 1.7 percent of British mobile subscribers (roughly 810,000 subs in all) visiting social communities during the first quarter of 2008, far ahead of Spain (0.8 percent of subscribers, or 291,000 consumers), Italy (0.6 percent, or 293,000 subscribers), France (0.6 percent, or 255,000 subscribers) and Germany (0.2 percent, or 141,000 subscribers). Depending on whether your perspective leans towards the glass as half empty or half full, you can conclude either that precious few people are surfing the mobile web for any reason, including social networking, or that social networking at least creates some genuine consumer enthusiasm in the absence of other compelling mobile web experiences.    

The growing mobile stature of sites like MySpace and Facebook does underscore a point Opera has been making all along: There's only one web. Consumers expect to surf the same sites and do the same things on a mobile device that they would on a PC, without limitations or compromises. What's unique about social networking is that it promises an even richer experience on mobile by liberating users to update their profiles and check in on friends while on the go, as life happens. It's an experience that demands a full-fledged web platform. Both social networking and wireless technologies are changing the way people communicate…and the mobile web is the bridge that connects them.  - Jason

P.S. FierceMobileContent will not publish Monday in observance of Memorial Day, and will resume publication Tuesday. Enjoy the long weekend.