Speaking at a session at SXSW on Tuesday, MocoSpace Vice President of Business Development and Marketing Casey Jones discussed various methods of monetizing traffic on the mobile Web in a workshop entitled "Mobile Advertising in 2010: How to Pay the Bills."
According to Jones, MocoSpace recently reached a count of 11 million members. Of those 11 million members, 500,000 make new "friends" every day on their smartphones, feature phones and the Web. Jones said MocoSpace has come a long way in realizing monetization through social networking.
MocoSpace makes money with its virtual currency and through advertising primarily targeted at its 18- to 34-year-old audience. Recent integrated campaigns were run by Sony Pictures, Spike TV and the U.S. Census, each targeting a specific demographic
"We're seeing strong growth in smartphone traffic led by Android and iPhone, which is translating into increased activity across the site including Games, Music, eCards, MocoGold, our virtual currency, and most importantly friending," said Jones in a statement. "Scale is a critical piece to being able to deliver on the promise of our targeting capabilities. We are very fortunate to have a large, growing, and loyal audience."
Jones said that MocoSpace currently generates 3 billion pages per month and was recently named the fourth most visited mobile Web site in the United States by analyst firm Ground Truth. Average session times are over 13 minutes on mobile, and mobile users access the site over five times per day, on average. Jones said the site expects its virtual currency and goods to exceed 15 percent of revenue by the end of 2010.