• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 4, 2009

Predicto is working to build out user-generated features that would let its mobile community shoot video comments from their cell phone and upload them to the site, according to Itai Kathein, president and co-founder of New York-based company.

The Predicto service, which officially launched in summer 2007, lets people make predictions via mobile phones on topics ranging from entertainment and pop culture, to politics and sports. The company scrolls the predictions in a live feed on its Web page, and taps a Twitter page to tweet the results.

Other services under construction would provide a mouthpiece to celebrities, similar to the way Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfry reached out to fans on Twitter. "Celebrities have begun to request a method to add their voice to the predictions, and interact with fans," Kathein said.

Nielsen Mobile data from the fourth quarter 2008 SMS Media Report compares Twitter's free service with Predicto paid service, according to Kathein. He said the study shows Twitter has a dominant presence among young and male-oriented audiences, but Predicto has attracted more mainstream followers, particularly among female and older demographics.

Twitter's microblogging service has grown in the past year to take the lead in the share of SMS transactions sent over carrier networks such as AT&T and Verizon. During the fourth quarter of 2008, tweets bypassed other free mobile services including ESPN, Facebook, and Google, according to data and analysis from Nielsen Mobile.

Between October and December 2008, Twitter had approximately 812,000 unique SMS users, but Predicto Mobile interacted with more than 2.3 million unique users. "We have a mainstream audience, which can help us grow faster," Kathein said. "Our members aren't necessarily the early adopters. Our customer base isn't made up of heavy iPhone users."

Key differences in the user breakdown of the two mobile communities include a 57/43% male/female ratio for Twitter versus 45/55% for Predicto; 49% of Twitter users are age 35 or older, compared with 68% with Predicto; and 16% of Twitter users earn more than $100,000, compared with 20% for Predicto.

Unlike Predicto, Twitter has had trouble holding on to users. More than 60% of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month. Twitter's audience retention rate -- or the percentage of a given month's users who come back the following month -- is about 40%, David Martin, vice president, primary research, Nielsen Online, wrote in a blog post: "People are signing up in droves, and Twitter's unique audience is up over 100% in March," he wrote. "But despite the hockey-stick growth chart, Twitter faces an uphill battle in making sure these flocks of new users are enticed to return to the nest."