Nokia (NYSE: NOK) views its social networking site Mosh as a test bed for new business models… “Mosh isn’t about moving the revenue needle, it is about finding the things that will,” said project leader George Linardos, reports Dow Jones. The different business models being looked at include service ads through its Nokia Interactive unit, a paid placement program called Spotlight which lets companies pay for prominent placement of their products, and free downloadable games which include advertisements, a different one each time the game is played. So Mosh is part of Nokia’s never-ending process of reinventing itself, in this case the companies push into content.
The article has some usage figures, but they don’t add up: “Since its beta launch in August, Mosh has drawn 12 million to 15 million unique users, with 100,000 visitors and 175,000 to 200,000 downloads a day.” Later the article states “India is the most active country with 50,000 users, and the U.S. is third with 30,000 users”, which can only get to the 12-15 million figure if Nokia is eliminating non-active users. Mosh might lose its beta tag and launch officially as early as June.
UPDATE: Nokia has informed us that the 50,000 figure for India is a per-day figure, rather than overall. The difficulty in estimating unique users is because many mobile phones don’t accept cookies — and that’s where a lot of traffic for Mosh comes from.
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