Blackberry Reviews

Facebook ; the social networking phenomenon that boasts over 500 million active users, a half of whom log on in any given day. That figure is set to grow even higher in 2011 but how do most people access Facebook and with the growing number of mobile phone users globally, is mobile the primary method by which people access Facebook? Let's take a look.

Facebook's Press room offers its own statistics about mobile and tells us that 40 percent of its active users (that's a whopping 200 million) are currently accessing FB through mobile devices and that those users are twice as active as non-mobile users. That figure has grown from 65 million in 2009. If growth like that continues, it won't be long before mobile is overwhelmingly the primary method by which users are accessing FB- and how!

However, accessing Facebook via mobile is not without its issues and Facebook is accordingly working hard and fast to address these. Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, speaking recently at Inside Social Apps, said that with such a large amount of Facebook users accessing via their mobile devices that it makes sense to make Mobile "our primary focus for our platform this year". Facebook has already introduced a single sign-on facility for ease of use. Hopefully Facebook now has the money and the technological expertise to address and ultimately enhance mobile user experience more fully in 2011.

According to some statistics a half of all mobile users engaging on FB use iPhone or iPad, with RIM's Blackberry client for Facebook coming in second with 60 million users and Android claiming 12 million users. Some reviewers indicate that neither iPhone nor Google have been terribly excited to support Facebook users to date and that as a result, current applications have been falling short on ease of use of the social networking site. However, they could really be shooting themselves in the foot as smartphone users are increasingly Facebook users and they will want the best phone to do the job.

So mobile is not the primary method for accessing Facebook. Surely it won't be long before it is. There seems to be no waning for the popularity of either the social networking site itself or for mobile devices and there is an increasingly exciting time ahead for both, I believe. With that in mind, mobile marketers are closely watching how each is trending so that they can predict what their target audience is buying and using. Mobile marketing, too, is really growing quickly and if your business hasn't caught on yet, it is time you took a closer look.