Zedge – 3.5 Million User MoSoSo

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I got a tip from a reader that mobile social and file sharing site (MOSOSO), Zedge.net was being acquired by multinational telecom conglomerate IDT. I can’t confirm that this is accurate so take it as an unfounded rumor. I’d never heard of Zedge or IDT so I did a little digging. Mashable was apparently also tipped and has a post up.

Update: The IDT – Zedge deal is real. Announcement here. I also heard from Fabio Pezzotti at Mobango and he says that Mobango has 1.2 million users. Fabio also mentioned that Zedge changed their domain from Zedge.no to Zedge.com this year which explains their sudden growth spike on the Alexa charts. Finally, Mobango is not advertising that heavily in the US or anywhere – only $50/day on AdSense again according to Fabio.. I’m sure I’ve seen those ads though – I think it was on HowardForums.

What really surprised me was how big Zedge is, claiming 3.5 million users. Last week I wrote about another MoSoSo, Mobango which doesn’t disclose it’s user numbers but which has a huge amount of shared content – 200,000 files. Well, Zedge tops that with 400,000 files. It’s impossible to get traffic data for mobile sites but we can look at traffic metrics for their associated PC sites. Both Mobango and Zedge require users to interact with their PC sites to register, update their profiles and push data to the mobile. I know Alexa data is considered suspect, but I think it’s actually OK for comparing similar sites. Here’s a graph from Alexa comparing Zedge with Mobango, MoSoSo pioneer TagTag and another site I’d never heard but which is the apparent market leader in the mobile social networking space, Mobile9.

The graph shows that Mobango passed TagTag this year. But look at the blue line, that’s Zedge which has come out of nowhere in one year to challenge Mobile9’s leadership. I obviously need to review both Zedge and Mobile9 very soon! I don’t think most US mobile users have even heard of either Mobile9 or Zedge but they appear to be the largest mobile social networks in the world. (Mobango has been advetising on US phonefan sites so I think it has some name recognition in the states). If the rumor of an acquisition by IDT is true that may change. IDT is a US based, 2 billion annual revenue company whose products include VOIP pioneer Net2Phone and the Hispanic targeted MVNO, TúYo wireless. IDT recently sold their Entertainment division and a Russian telecom so they should have some cash available for an acquisition. It certainly makes sense that a fast growing mobile social and content sharing network like Zedge would be attractive takeover target. We shall see – but it looks like MoSoSo may be poised for a takeoff worldwide and in the US.

13 thoughts on “Zedge – 3.5 Million User MoSoSo”

  1. I have used Zedge and saw a great many problems with it for users.

    The rules regarding posted material are very, very inconsistently applied, and some people appear to get targeted unfairly. Some users seem to be allowed to get away with uploading anything at all, whilst others have material removed even though it is perfectly clear (well, to anyone with half a brain anyway) that the removed material did not breach the Terms of Service in any way.

    The moderators are some of the worst I’ve ever come across, and seem to love throwing their weight around. Some appear to be distinctly lacking in the old grey matter department. I also had problems e.g. spending some considerable time creating a wallpaper, to find that a moderator has simply removed it for some unexplainable breach. I had about 30% of my wallpapers removed and to this day cannot fathom why. That’s another problem. You are never told why it was removed, apart from the statement that someone ‘reported’ it. You are not allowed to question this, not even to ask why. I tried to in the forums and received very short shrift.

    My advice, don’t use Zedge if you are serious about contributing mobile phone content.

  2. people loves mobile 9 because unlike zedge they dont just ban their users. also in zedge there is unequality rights to other members. there are stupid siteguards very unexperience people who flag items as if they were gods. plus the moderators too. mobile 9 has cool stuffs rather than zedge. m9 rules! m9 rocks! m9 is god! LOL

  3. It is not really a cool site for socializing. For downloading contents on your mobiles, it can be a good site but they have no animated themes or wallpapers. They have siteguards who report zedgers (whom they call their members) who post or upload nudity or any offensive material. Yet their own site guards do not work for it. Some of their site guards are the ones who initiate posting “lewd” pictures on other people’s guestbook. Also, be careful on this site because you might get banned for no reasons. Like if they had traced you opening 2 or more accounts in a shared computer, all accounts will be banned and all uploads of that account will be deleted. I suggest you go to Facebook or Friendster for socializing but not in Zedge. Mobile 9 is way better!

  4. Yes i am looking forward for that review, if you can find out how much each site makes quarterly or yearly, it would make the report even more fascinating, but there are sites that offer prt of the mobile package like just ring tones and wallpapers, that are up there too, look into it, a new coming, $1.5 million funded company (source: Crunchbase/techcrunch) is cellfuse.com, its

  6. Yes i am looking forward for that review, if you can find out how much each site makes quarterly or yearly, it would make the report even more fascinating, but there are sites that offer prt of the mobile package like just ring tones and wallpapers, that are up there too, look into it, a new coming, $1.5 million funded company (source: Crunchbase/techcrunch) is cellfuse.com, its clearly in the works, but give it a month :)

  7. “I obviously need to review both Zedge and Mobile9 very soon!”

    I was just wondering, did you complete this review? I’d be quite interested in seeing what people think of the sites and which they think is better and why :).

  10. there are lots of sites out there like zedge, mobile9 etc, another to add would be cellmind.com or theunlocker.co.uk

  13. we are currently climbing fast and closing in on zedge and mobile9 our site is only 1 product – phone themes but we have a winning star, on line tools

    although just barely 200 days old our content size tops these sites already with a whopping 16000 new content each day.

    able to help us write something about this?

    thanks

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