It’s no surprise that financiers are drawn in. Mobile data usage is the fastest-growing and most lucrative sector for wireless operators looking to expand beyond voice calls. Wireless location-based services have finally started to hit the U.S. market over the past few months, with recent launches by Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. Researchers at ABI predict the global market will grow from $981 million in 2005 to $8 billion by 2010.
Plus there are the legions of kids who have signed onto social networking sites like MySpace (76 million users), Bebo (24 million), Facebook (9 million), and Tagged (2.5 million).