According to a recent online survey conducted by ABI Research, nearly half (46 percent) of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone.
Of these, nearly 70 percent have visited MySpace and another 67 percent had visited Facebook. No other social networking site reached 15 percent adoption mobile adoption, per the ABI market study results.
"As in the online social networking space, there is clearly a large gap between the big two (MySpace and Facebook) social networks and the others," says research director Michael Wolf.
"ABI Research believes this is because consumers do not want to recreate entirely new and separate social networks for mobile, but rather want to tap into their existing social network and have it go with them via the mobile phone. For most, this means MySpace, Facebook, or even both."
So what are these consumers doing when they access their mobile social network?
The biggest features consumers use when accessing a social network on their phone is checking for comments and messages from their friends, with both of these features registering above 50 percent for mobile social network users.
Posting status updates also has proven popular, with over 45 percent of mobile social users letting others what they are up to via their phone.
The social network is increasingly becoming a central hub for communication across online and mobile domains for many consumers. To a degree, it allows them to centralize messaging, communication and even digital media consumption through a centralized property on various screens.
ABI believes that the centralization of a consumer's digital lifestyle through social networks will only increase adoption of mobile social networking in coming years.
ABI's study provides an insightful snapshot of current attitudes and perceptions relating to the mobile social networking landscape, as well as a few counter-intuitive results.
