Facebook @ Mobile - 300% growth to 65 million

At the beginning of this year, Facebook had around 20 million active users accessing the service through their mobile devices. In just 8 months, the service has witnessed explosive growth in the mobile arena with Facebook placing a lot of emphasis on mobile apps. Facebook now has more than 65 million users who are actively using this social network from their mobile devices, a figure that has increased through both the mobile version of the website and specific Facebook apps on smartphones.

The company has also been expanding its new feature "Facebook Connect" on the mobile Web. Using this system, independent developers can use information (with permission) from a Facebook user's account for their individual services. This enables Facebook users to use their Facebook identity to automatically log in to various services on the Internet, without needing to sign up for separate accounts.

The mobile platform is becoming more and more important for companies doing business on the Web, especially Internet retailers and online merchants. For many users, powerful smartphones like the iPhone are becoming their primary computing platforms. Facebook has also begun testing a system for users to make online payments, which might eventually become a central component of the company's revenue plans in the future.

Facebook's success on mobile also means that social networking websites can also be useful platforms for mobile social marketing campaigns, as businesses promoted on such sites could potentially reach millions of consumers.

As users increasingly go mobile, flexible mobile-catalog and mobile commerce systems will also help business owners reach out to their target customers more efficiently. Using mobile applications for business purposes is also a logical extension of this process, providing users more flexibility, freedom and ease of use - a rich overall experience, leading to lower costs and productivity gains.