Mobile entertainment company Buongirono has released statistics on the performance of its mobile social networking solution, BING. BING launced initially in South Africa and Austria in June 2007, and has since rolled out in an additional nine territories, including the UK, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Vietnam.  According to Buongiorno, over 20 million messages are currently exchanged each week on BING, with 1.2 million user logins each week.
The BING application blends SMS and Instant Messenger (IM) functionality in an open Java software service that allows for real mobile-to-mobile chat for friends which is entirely free of charge. A key benefit of the service, says Buonogiorno, is that it can operate irrespective of mobile operator and handset model anywhere in the world. Also, unlike traditional SMS, BING allows users to communicate with as many friends as they like at the same time.
The application has a core target group of 16-18 year olds, but Buongiorno says it is resonating with a broader demographic of young urban people, for whom social networking on the move is very important.
Buongiorno says it will be investing 10 million (8 million) in designing an upgrade of BING that will allow the company to further capture the mobile social networking trend. Buongiorno notes that according to eMarketer, social networking is expected to attract advertising amounting to over $2.1 billion (1.1 billion) by 2008, representing an increase of 75% since 2007, in a market where consolidation is already taking place.
It is important for Buongiorno to capture value generating developments in the industry, and the enormous popularity of social networking obviously represents a huge opportunity for us, says Fernando Gonzlez Mesones, Head of Global Marketing, Product & Supply at Buongiorno. It is our goal to become one of the most recognized global brands in mobile social networking.