Long Tail of Social Networking

Nearly half (46%) of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone, according to ABI Research. Of these, nearly 70% have visited MySpace and another 67% had visited Facebook.

No other social networking site reached 15% adoption mobile adoption. That is what one would expect if the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule or "long tail") holds.

"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."

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% for mobile social network users.

Posting status updates also has proven popular, with over 45% 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," says Wolf. "To a degree, it allows them to centralize messaging, communication and even digital media consumption through a centralized property on various screens."

That is something enterprise social networks might hope to replicate.