Piczo Archive

Social networking player Piczo has announced a partnership with Intercasting Corp. to enable Piczo members to produce and share content on their mobile phones. Jupiter Research notes that more than 50% of 13-to-17-year-olds are engaging in mobile social networking, with revenues expected to reach $2.8b by 2012 so getting Piczo on mobile devices appears to make good financial sense.

The partnership will allow Piczo to offer compelling mobile services including a mobile application, SMS/MMS messaging and a Piczo mobile Internet site. Intercasting currently works with wireless carriers, including 3UK, Boost Mobile, Sprint and Virgin Mobile. I wonder if parents have to approve the use of a mobile device for social networking applications. 

Some of the latest metrics from Piczo:

• More than 28 million registered user accounts
• 10.6 million Monthly Unique Visitors generating 750 million monthly Page Views
• Created for teenagers worldwide, Piczo users are typically 13-to-16 years old
• Third largest teenage community site worldwide

Microsoft and Piczo have announced this morning that they joining forces on the Piczo social networking web site. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will be Piczo's exclusive UK ad sales partner across all communication formats and market categories. The deal will enable Piczo to focus on enhancing product and service experience, to continue to maintain and grow its user base.

Some Piczo facts from the press release, "12 million Unique Visitors generating over 2 billion monthly page views, ranked no.2 teen site worldwide."

Chris Seth, Managing Director, Piczo, said: "This deal brings together two market leaders. We're excited to be working with the most professional and successful sales team in the business. And at a time when brands are increasingly looking for ways to respond to the decline in mass media consumption, Piczo offers advertisers unprecedented access to 65% of the UK teen market."

Chris Ward, Commercial Director, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions said: "We chose Piczo because of its success in social networking, in terms of both reach and engagement. This is the first deal of its kind in the UK for each of us and reflects the importance of providing advertisers with technology innovation and the right communication channels to enable it to deliver relevant and engaging content to specific consumer audiences."

Ward continued: "This is a great example of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions long term strategy to broaden its overall offering to advertisers and provide them with access to key target audiences across multiple consumer digital lifestyle touch points."

I hope Piczo has a less confusing experience than I did with MSN adCenter.