By BOB TEDESCHI
For most people, a quick glance at Facebook, Twitter or MySpace is enough to get up to speed on one’s social circle. So why would you need to haul yourself to a computer just to do that?
You don’t. As long as you’ve got the right phone.
Cellular networks, in their endless quest to make the phone the center of the information-gathering universe, are making it easier to retrieve updates from online social networks. And some are going to the extreme of bundling all the big sites on one screen, as if to create one giant social hub. (MyTwitBook, anyone?)
The trend is being advanced by Helio, the niche cellular network that made a name for itself as a carrier of cool phones and services and was purchased this year by Virgin Mobile USA. Virgin Mobile said it would announce on Thursday a new service, Helio Connect, which delivers updates from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube on a single page. The service, which eats up part of your mobile data allowance unless you’re on an unlimited plan, will be introduced to Virgin Mobile’s users early next year. In the meantime, Helio users will have a leg up on other social-networking aficionados.
From the Connect application, which will appear on the home screen of Helio’s mobile Web browser starting Thursday, users can enter their Facebook and Twitter account information, for instance, and give Helio permission to save that information and pull updates from the sites.
Entering text was easy using a Helio Ocean ($129 after rebates), a fairly slick but older phone scheduled for an update next year. From there, each time I opened Connect, the service offered up two pull-down menus — one to choose a social network, the other to choose which kinds of updates I might like to see.
This in itself is not such a revolution for people with smartphones like the iPhone on AT&T, the G1 from T-Mobile or the Rant from Sprint, which offer applications dedicated to Facebook or MySpace. Those services are great if your social networking tends to revolve around one or two services, but for a growing number of people, that’s not the case.
On those other phones, you need to head to the Web browser to check other services, or try to download another social networking hub (which we’ll get to in a moment). But on Helio’s Connect service, you need log on only once and all of your updates will appear on the same screen, in chronological order.
The service was not problem-free, at least in its trial stage last week. At least once, the phone’s screen froze, and I had to pull the battery from the Ocean to restart the device. (Helio could not explain the glitch.)
The only other drawback to the service is that it exists only on Helio, at least at the moment. Helio piggybacks on Sprint’s network, so you’ll want to check that carrier’s coverage map to see if that would work for you. Helio also offers a meager selection of phones (four, to be exact), and has been slow to release new ones.
The fact that Virgin Mobile, a prepay-only carrier, will also offer Connect next month is a boon to those who hate usage contracts. Virgin has not yet said what it will charge users for Connect, but a Virgin-specific social network now costs 15 cents a day, and Connect’s charges could be in that range.
For those who want to stick with their existing carriers, there is an alternative to Connect, but there will be a fee. Intercasting, a San Diego-based company, offers its Anthem mobile hub for social network fans on Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. On Verizon, the service is called SocialLife, and it costs $1.50 monthly. On AT&T, it is called My Communities, costing $3 a month, and on Sprint it goes by the name Social Zone, for $3. (T-Mobile is testing the service on a handful of devices; pricing is not yet set.)
As with Helio Connect, this service gives mobile users a quick way to check for updates on their favorite social networks, as long as these users are among the few people who are not on Facebook. The company says it is working toward adding Facebook, but in the meantime, subscribers will have to satisfy themselves with updates from MySpace, Asian Ave, Xanga and nine other services.
There are few differences among the services across the various carriers, an Intercasting spokeswoman said. But the Anthem service is not available on all phones — and the list of phones is often the opposite of what you’d expect. On Sprint, for example, service is available on the Samsung Instinct and the Rant, but many other smartphones, including Blackberrys, are shut out, for now. Other so-called feature phones, however, can use it.
That’s strange, because smartphone users are the high-tech information addicts you’d expect to use Anthem most avidly. But Anthem has not released a version for the software platforms that power the current array of popular smartphones.
And speaking of exceptions, iPhone users also cannot use Anthem. Instead, subscribers can download Yahoo’s OneConnect application, which made its debut in September.
OneConnect is similar to Helio’s Connect service, in that iPhone users (and only iPhone users — the application is exclusive to Apple’s smartphone) get a single hub to view all the major social networks. Another interesting feature to come is OneConnect’s social-location ability: the company said it is working on a function that would import your contacts from each network and show you where they are on a map (assuming they subscribe to a location-based service). But that’s for another column.
Quick Calls
It hasn’t taken long for Google’s new voice-search application for the iPhone to generate competition. Vlingo, a voice-activation technology for mobile phones, released its own free iPhone application on Wednesday. With Vlingo, you can speak a Google search into the phone, but this application also lets you search Yahoo. You can also tell the phone to call one of your contacts, find an address or change your Twitter or Facebook status. ... Feel squeamish about completing financial transactions on your mobile phones? PayPal customers can now sign up to receive security codes, via text message, before they log into their accounts. The code is randomly generated for each use, and the service is free at paypal.com/securitykey. ... If you love (or hate) the food at that new pizza joint and want to share your feelings with the world, you can do it from your tableside. Citysearch.com has released a mobile application that makes it easier to upload reviews. The free application will also detect the type of phone you have and, the company says, offer pages tailored to that device.
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