Music, news, social media, shopping...many parts of our lives that are online are rapidly becoming mobile thanks to a new concept called the mobile lifestyle. A recent study, conducted by Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless and WCG, shows just how far this "mobile lifestyle" concept has advanced and the results are quite telling.
The results of the Verizon Wireless (News - Alert) / WCG study showed that there were over 256 million conversations about mobile lifestyle topics going on in 2012 alone, which represents nearly 500 conversations per minute, every day. This sounds like a big number, until it's considered just what all goes into the concept of "mobile lifestyle." Mobile lifestyle encompasses a huge array of topics. Not only does it include those devices that allow the mobile lifestyle to carry on like tablets and smartphones, but it also includes what people do with those devices. This in turn gives rise to an ever-expanding variety of topics about what people are doing as part of the mobile lifestyle, and what people are using to get there in the first place.
One of the biggest parts of the mobile lifestyle is social networking. When it came to mobile lifestyle conversations in 2012, the study revealed that about a third of the conversations were social networking-based. Whether it is sharing photos, posting to Facebook or Twitter (News - Alert), commenting on other people's Facebook and Twitter posts, or anything like that, social networking is a major part of the mobile lifestyle, and should continue to be so throughout 2013. In something of a meta-development, people are using their mobile devices increasingly as part of their mobile lifestyle; 54 percent of Facebook users, for example, access the site from a mobile device. 60 percent of Twitter users can say likewise, and Instagram and Foursquare (News - Alert) saw major gains in total user numbers thanks to mobiles.
The rise of mobile shopping, meanwhile, isn't lost on anyone, and it's making serious advancements as part of the mobile lifestyle. eBay recently posted some significant gains in annual revenue figures thanks to the growth in mobile shopping, and their recent promotion with bliss spas, which turned the ordinarily hectic Black Friday (News - Alert) shopping experience into a relaxing day of pampering and spa treatments while still allowing shoppers to get their Christmas shopping taken care of, was a big part of that.
But while there were clear dominating topics in the field, there were also a wide variety of other fields making up the mobile lifestyle. Several topics received four percent or less of the total conversation count, yet together accounted for almost a quarter of all conversations, including topics like gaming, reading, finance, navigation, movies and television, sports and news.
There are several great points to take away from this idea; opportunities for gain in social networking, opportunities for gain in the other top fields like music and shopping, as well as the sheer variety of total topics available for consideration in mobile lifestyle to begin with. Mobile devices are going to be a major part of the landscape for some time to come, and in turn, will bring a wide variety of opportunities with it.