Can the Future of Mobile Be Found in Social? CI & CNBC Use Social Media Analytics to Find Out

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We’re here at the CTIA Wireless 2012 conference in New Orleans, where we are partnering with CNBC to bring social insights on the mobile space. The CNBC Social Conversation Index: Mobile Edition (powered by Collective Intellect) is being used to analyze and track emerging themes and topics related to :

We’ve been processing enormous amounts of data from millions of unique authors and into day two, here are some key themes we’ve found:

People love talking about the iPhone, But for How Much Longer

Although Apple is not at the conference, consumers continue to express their love of the iPhone and monopolize the conversation around all things Apple. But their unassailable reign may not be entirely assured in the long-term. The release of the new Samsung Galaxy and the acquisition of Motorola by Google may provide the first real competition to their grip on the market.

Both Samsung and Motorola have a ways to go to drive momentum in the social media landscape; the Engaged Consumer Index displayed this ranking,

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But Samsung’s tie-in with the London Olympics is getting some attention and consumer perception may also be contributing to expectations for a battle:

We’ll continue to analyze social data for predictive insights around purchase intent and active shopping to track how Samsung’s market efforts are influencing consumer behavior. We’re expecting that if there is a shift in market presence, the trend will emerge in the social data first.

AT&T continues to be strongly associated with the iPhone brand. And the ranking in each of the key social indicators reinforces that analysis:

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The top three players (AT&T, Sprint & Verizon) trade places in in Affinity, Favorite and Unfavorable but Boost, a less familiar brand, emerges in the Active Shopper and Purchase Language categories. Their placement may reflect recent a new announcement around making 4G WiMax phones from last year available for purchase as part of a pre-pay plan

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This will be another trend we’ll continue to monitor to see if the availability of more sophisticated handsets influences consumers expression of purchase intent or shopping behavior.

There’s Always Be More To Say

Obviously, there are big changes happening in the mobile space: the recent acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, Google’s purchase of Motorola and T-Mobile’s rebranding ads highlight the dynamic nature of this space. The social aspects will continue to influence both phone adoption and technology enhancements as phone are used for purposes that rely more heavily on a social component, like gaming, sharing photos and music.