Phatfinger started mobile, going social

Phatfinger.com is a niche mobile community for outdoor enthusiasts. Hardcore outdoor enthusiasts number close to 50 million people in the United States, out of a total outdoor activity group numbering close to 100 million. Of this group, about 20 million are extreme sports fans that make their passions part of their everyday life.

The concept began three years ago as a text messaging solution that allowed whitewater kayakers to retrieve real time river flows on their mobile phones. Soon, the founders were contacted by users wanting to see other outdoor data, such as surf, wind, snow pack, and other related data also added to the service. Naturally wanting the free service to be super useful for the community, they obliged.

That is when it really got interesting... as users nationwide started pinging the Phatfinger network via SMS for outdoor conditions, the next logical step for the service was a group messaging feature that allowed climbers to pass on condition info to a predefined group of friends in the course of planning their next trip.

"Soon, we started seeing activity levels that led us to believe we could create an even more interesting service that acknowledged these groups, creating a social network as a natural byproduct of using the service," says co-founder Bodie Chreesta.

So where's the money?

With healthy usage during peak seasons, Phatfinger is monetizing the network through (you guessed it) advertising. In addition to tagline text adds appended to SMS message traffic, online ads also accompany the group and activity profile pages. The text ads are particularly exciting because in many cases Phatfinger understands geographic context and is able to deliver the most relevant ads to the users.

"When a group of 5 or 10 kayakers are running the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and use our service, the local North Bend Bar & Grill delivers a half off ad to the group as part of the text message," explains Bodie, "You can bet those paddlers will think twice about grabbing a burger and beers on their way home."