MobileNetworkEffects

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Mobile companies bow down to social networking
By Ojas Sharma
Tuesday,13 October 2009, 07:53 hrs Comment(2)PrintForward
Bangalore: There is an all out battle going on between mobile companies, software companies, VAS developers as well as companies providing mobile operating systems to gain an advantage in market with the help of social networking websites, which are attracting thousands of users every day. Motorola Cliq, RIM Travel Smartphone, Samsung S3653 Corby are the latest phones to have social networking features specially designed to give users the web based experience on their handset.


Nokia India recently offered 'live life online' feature for free on the purchase of Nokia E63, E71 and E75 'QWERTY' device. This feature allows users to check mail, blog and many other things on their phone. Nokia recently acquired Dopplr, a travel social networking website, and extended its list of other recently acquired companies like Plum and Cellity. By acquiring these companies (related to social networking) Nokia is trying to find new ways of making its mobile phones attractive. Nokia users can now update their status on Facebook through Nokia Ovi account. Facebook, a global social networking platform is increasing in popularity globally. 70 percent of its users are outside the U.S. and there are more than 300 million active users on internet. Out of these, more than 65 million users access Facebook through their mobile devices.

Mobile companies are also trying to integrate Twitter which allows users to post a message of around 140 characters. Twitter, also called the SMS of internet, is used by social networking enthusiast as well as corporates to inform their supporters about the latest updates.

Research in Motion (RIM) is now using services from SHAPE, which will allow Facebook users to exchange instant messages with smileys, send files, log in into multiple accounts simultaneously and preview avatar images of their buddies in contact list. According to SHAPE services, IM+ 7.0 supports eight instant messaging services: AIM/iChat, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM, Jabber, ICQ, GoogleTalk, and Facebook.

RIM recently launched Blackberry Tour Smartphone in partnership with Reliance Mobile. It provides easy access to Facebook and MySpace and also supports various messenger services. Satchit Gayakwad, India Spokesperson, RIM says that people no longer want to be restricted by laptop and PCs and want to be in touch with internet anywhere they go. He feels that even service providers have enabled various plans to provide wide range of such services at a cheaper rate to the customers. "If you look at the trend, dominance of internet is increasing in India. Nowadays, any average user has two email ids, two messenger ids as well as an account on two social networking sites. The user feels the need to share photos and latest status with peer and family on the go," said Gayakwad.

Motorola was once a dominant phone manufacturer but now it has slipped to the number four spot. To increase its popularity Motorola recently launched its Android based phone called Cliq which will make it easier to integrate all social networking websites. "MotoBlur makes text, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter feeds and photos from sources like MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo and corporate e-mail appear in a single stream and sync them together with no different logins," said Sanjay Jha, Motorola Chief Executive. Motorola is betting that the combination of Blur and Android will make social networking so much better for mobile users that its phones will stand out.

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