Bluepulse, a social networking application that was started in Australia, has entered the U.S. market with the help of $6 million from VantagePoint Venture Partners. Bluepulse enables users to communicate and meet new people through one-to-one and broadcast messaging, profiles, picture and video sharing, chat and a wide range of mobile widgets. In its beta phase, it already has over 2 million downloads across 150+ countries and is closing in on 100 million page views per month while adding thousands of new users each day.
Juniper Research, a market analysis firm forecasts that mobile operator revenues from user-generated content will increase tenfold over the next five years, rising from $576 million in 2007 to $5.74 billion by 2012. Juniper predicts that social networking service will account for 50% of that total, with the number of active mobile social network subscribers increasing from 14 million in 2007 to 600 million in 2012.
“Bluepulse has undoubtedly developed one of the most compelling social networking platforms for mobile. Because the app has been built for the handset from the ground up, it offers a mobile-specific social networking experience, rather than a pared down Web experience on a phone,” said Eric Ver Ploeg, Managing Director at VantagePoint Venture Partners. “We are excited to be investors in a company with such an innovative and global vision for the future of the Mobile Web.”
Humans are a social creature. It only makes sense that as mobile computing increases in ability, people will demand social networking applications that keep them connected with their social circles.