Connecting online beats gaming in app usage

A twitter logo is seen on a cell phone screen Social networking has risen to rival gaming as an app category dominating usage of consumers' cellphone minutes, a US research company says. Mobile analytics firm Flurry, measuring the average time smartphone users spent across app categories in the last year, found gaming dropped by 4 percent, down to 24 minutes per day, while social networking increased by 60 percent, up to 24 minutes per day, Mediapost.com reported.
Games have long dominated smartphone minute use, but that is changing, Flurry found.
Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry, said: "The most significant trend is that for the first time in the history of application, another app category is rivalling games".
He added: "We take the rise in social networking apps as a signal of maturation for the platform. As game demand may be hitting its saturation point, consumers are also discovering other apps, namely social networking."
Farago also said that social networking has also surpassed gaming in terms of advertising revenue in apps.
"This is the first time in Flurry's history that any category has surpassed games in ad revenue generated," he said, noting Flurry has been tracking that number since 2008.