Virgin expanding social network presence

We’ve never been shy regarding our opinions of Virgin Mobile. And it’s been so easy to take a stance over the past few months, because they’ve been on a marketing binge. Some things we can get on board with. Other we think we could do without. But in any case, Virgin is making a name for itself, and it’s linking itself to social networks to do so. The latest partnership is with Intercasting. Through them, Virgin will offer their subscribers access to a number of social networking sites through their cell phone. So we’ve already seen Virgin connected with Facebook. Now they’re hooking their customers up with access to LiveJournal, Rabble, Vox, and Xanga, as well as demographic-specific social networking sites like AsianAve and BlackPlanet. Our question: where are the two big ones, Facebook and Myspace? Actually, now that we’re sitting down and thinking about it, Twitter would work perfectly on a mobile platform. Apparently, though, Virgin made deals for these sites based on a survey of their subscribers.

Those who used social-networking sites frequented well-known sites such as Facebook and MySpace.com, but Virgin Mobile USA said that 43% named other sites as their favorites. Sixteen percent of Virgin Mobile USA’s customers who use social-networking sites named Xanga as a favorite, and 5% specifically listed BlackPlanet.com. A vast majority of social networkers—92%—said they visited their favorite site at least once a day; one-third of users said they spent between 15 to 30 minutes on the site, and 14% said they spent more than 90 minutes per day on the site.

Sixteen percent use Xanga? We didn’t even think Xanga still existed. The service can be purchased either on a daily basis, for $1 per day and up to a half-megabyte of data, or $4 for a month, which includes up to five megabytes of data. Only three current Virgin phones can access the service: the Cyclops, Slider Sonic, and Switch_Back. However, it will be available on more handsets in the future, as Virgin is set to roll out a new line in a month or so.]]>