The Netsize Guide 2010 is also creating a stir at CTIA, where several fans have asked me for a copy. But at 200+ pages it really wasn’t the ideal hand luggage to bring on the trip. Instead, MSG and Netsize move on to Part 2 in the ongoing series to showcase a “best of” selection of executive interviews and hot topics that have everyone talking. On the heels of the fantastically successful SXSW conference, there’s a sharp focus on figuring out how companies can move from meeting place to market place – and make money in the process.

Flirtomatic is certainly a company that provides a blueprint.

U.K.-based Flirtomatic is a pioneer mobile flirting service and one of the most popular social mobile services used by young adults in the U.K., Germany, Australia and the U.S. It counts over 1.7 million registered users and distribution partnerships with Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, ninemsn, ProSiebenSat1, and Samsung.

But it’s not just about flirting and fun; Flirtomatic has successfully monetized its traffic through virtual gifting and mobile advertising thanks to deals with ad networks such as AdMob and major brands including L’Oreal, o2 and Strongbow. Mark Curtis, Flirtomatic CEO, talks about the company’s transformation.

FLIRTOMATIC INTERVIEW

Q: Flirtomatic stands out as a cross-media mobile social network that is also highly regarded as a thriving mobile business. What has contributed to this success?

A: For that you have to look at the company history. At first we thought the supreme user experience would win out on the phone; and Java was the place to deliver that supreme user experience. However, it soon became clear to us that this assumption was wrong. Java proved to be flawed for what we wanted to do, which was deliver a complex, rich and ever-changing social experience as opposed to a one-off games download. We switched tactics to focus on the mobile Internet, and we have never really looked back.

Q: What is your strategy for apps?

A: Apple has convincingly demonstrated that supreme user experience does win out.
We will soon launch an Apple app and one for Android next year. This, of course, complicates the life of a company trying to innovate rapidly, because we will be working across four platforms. We’re on the fixed Internet as well.

In my view, there is a high likelihood that things will swing back to a browser-based environment over the next two or three years. Good mobile browsers are already capable of doing quite a lot of things that you can do in an app, so the world will probably swing back to a browser experience because users won’t be able to tell the difference.

Q: How has your approach to monetization changed over the years and why?

A: We started with what I would call a pay-for-access model. We never went down the route of the automatically renewed subscriptions because we felt it was not customer friendly.

We saw an enormous number of page views and that made us think that there’s an advertising opportunity here. At around the same time AdMob appeared on the scene and we became one of AdMob’s first publishers. From there, offering virtual goods as a means to generate additional revenues was a three-minute thought.

Q: You offer virtual gifting, allowing users to buy each other witty items. But you also enable members to advertise themselves to the group. Where is the growth opportunity in advertising?

A: There are lots of rich answers here. You can sell advertising to a commercial advertiser and you can also make money with your customers. There are several ways we use the real estate at the top of the page. We sell it to commercial advertisers. And we are seeing renewed growth now after what has frankly been a pretty flat year up until three months ago.

I might add that we brought someone from Blyk [the world's first ad-funded MVNO] on board to sell premium ad sales and create new advertiser- based creative solutions for advertisers. She’s been with us now for three months and that’s also why the revenues are beginning to role in.

Q: How do you see the overall outlook for mobile advertising?

A: We think mobile advertising is going to grow very strongly over the next few years. The market is still in its infancy and the Google-AdMob deal could be regarded in Churchillean tones as the ‘end of the beginning.’ Now we move into the next phase.

To go back to that Churchill quote, the end of the beginning was pretty early in the Second World War, and there’s still a long way to go in mobile advertising. We haven’t yet conquered the question: are banners the ultimate format? We’re seeing some significant changes as a result of the iPhone. AdMob have done some interesting experimentation there and we’ll see more on Android.

Q: You are particularly bullish about premium ad sales side of your business. Please update us on your progress to date.

A: The premium ad side is about creating solutions with advertisers that integrate more deeply into our products. A classic example of this approach is the Strongbow campaign we did a little over a year ago. The company ran a campaign that allowed Flirtomatic users to send each other a virtual pint of Strongbow cider. The recipients then received a voucher on their mobile phones, which they could redeem at participating pubs. The campaign exceeded our expectations, with 365,000 pints sent by users to their friends.

Q: You are expanding to new commercial areas, such as premium, and new regions, such as the U.S. How do you maintain the momentum?

A: The key to this is to move away from a belief that what one has created is a platform. Companies that offered a chat platform to operators weren’t building a brand; they were delivering a platform through which people could talk to each other. Our strategy has been slightly different. We always wanted to have a voice with our users and decided at an early stage that Flirtomatic would be a service that would speak to its members and so users would be accustomed to hearing from us.

If you use Facebook, MySpace Twitter, you don’t expect to hear that much from them. They’re in the background and they offer a platform you use to communicate. We talk to our users quite a lot, so much so that we see ourselves as being more like a media owner than a platform provider. We have built our success – and continue to succeed – because of the mindset that we’re a media owner.

Being a media owner gives us permission to say to users ‘hey, we’re going to have some fun here with Halloween’. This allows us to promote fun and offers, and this also gives us differentiation from dating sites that can’t do promotions.

Q: Can you provide examples?

A: We do something called ‘bundle days,’ when we give users access to a whole load of services at reduced prices. It’s just like doing a two-for-one offer. And when we last did this we saw our revenue triple.

We do outbound communication, which is aimed to drive revenues and engagement with the customer the customer. But we also focus on the customer and responding to their needs. Investing in the team and taking the time to deal with customers has two great benefits: we’re close to our customer base, and they trust us to give them live and instant feedback.

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE

The Netsize Guide – which features exclusive interviews with 28 industry senior executives at leading companies and organizations including Havas, M&S, MMA, Nokia NAVTEQ, PayPal and Sony Music Entertainment — provides unique perspectives and reveals how players across the mobile ecosystem are preparing to meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities ahead.

The Netsize Guide 2010 also includes the results of Mobile Trends Survey 2010, an online survey asking +1,000 mobile professionals and practitioners across 67 countries their views on these key themes and their insights into trends that top the industry agenda, including the advance of mobile applications stores, progress towards global mobile commerce and the increasing importance of mobile across a range of business verticals.

Finally, the Netsize Guide 2010 presents detailed data on the wireless telecoms sector in 41 countries, including revenues, market shares and value-added service offerings for messaging and billing of 194 mobile network operators worldwide.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE NETSIZE GUIDE HERE.

Disclaimer: Netsize is an MSG supporter. Peggy Anne Salz is author of the Netsize Guide 2010.

Tags: AdMob, Android, app store, Apple, Blyk, Facebook, Flirtomatic, Google, iPhone, L’Oreal, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Social Networks, MySpace, Netsize, Netsize Guide 2010, ninemsn, O2, Orange, ProSiebenSat1, Samsung, Strongbow, T-Mobile, Twitter, Vodafone

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Briefing Rooms, Featured, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Social Networking, Netsize, Netsize Guide, social search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.