New Media Knowledge had an evening roundtable, an overview of which is here. Interesting stats on MatchMobile American mobile phone usage.

Peter Larsen – CEO, Enpocket:

In his talk on ‘Mobile Communities – The new Blogosphere’ Larsen outlined how mblogging adds mobility and the ability to contribute pictures – posting them to a WAP site or a website. Social interaction was the first reason for the mobile phone; personal expression was the second reason, but it’s now closing in on the first he said, especially with the proliferation of ringtones. Hence what powers the mobile phone is a nexus of personal expression and social interaction and mblogging has now taken off, particularly with the addition of picture content.

Enpocket runs one the larger mobile dating applications in the world, a major client being Match.com. The first thing they did was add location – you can say if you want to search for a person anywhere or in a particular place. Most traffic happens across borders. People in the States tend top use the local option, but people in South East Asia prefer to look for people in other countries in the region. Significantly, there is 60% more interaction regarding people who add their photos. Adding the mblogging function to dating it makes it much more likely you will change and expand your profile information.

Mblogging by itself is not very interesting but as a social application it’s much more interesting. Are mbloggers the same demographic as the web? His mantra had been that dating on the mobile should match / compliment any activity on the web, but it has emerged that Match.com users are older and more suburban, whereas Match Mobile users are urban, younger, of a lower socio-economic base, and (in the US) more from the immigrant population, with Match Mobile growing at a rate of 15% per month.

It’s clear why personal expression is such rich territory – spending $4 on a ring tone is nothing compared to a haircut, a designer jacket, trainers, a mobile phone or a car. The most favoured mobile content applications, according to recent Enpocket research in the UK:

Sharing pictures with friends and family7 – 46%
Making / receiving video calls – 36%
Downloading songs 0- 23%
Video clip of sports highlights – 20%
Text flirting / dating – 16%
Watching movie trailers – 12%
Help in managing a diet – 11%
Celeb news / gossip – 9%