Text messaging … meet poking.
Popular internet networking website Facebook.com recently launched Facebook Mobile, which allows website users to implement various website features on their cell phones, including messaging, poking, wall posting and looking at user profiles.
“The idea came mainly from our users,” said Facebook spokesman Chris Hughes in an email, adding the new additions have been in development for several months. “We get suggestions all the time for ways to make Facebook better; people wrote in that it would be awesome if they could connect up to Facebook using text messaging on their phones.
The Facebook launched its mobile technology at Harvard University, Stanford University and Berkeley University April 3, and Boston University first received Facebook Mobile April 12.
Users can perform tasks on Facebook mobile by submitting their phone numbers to the site, then using the code “FBOOK” (32665) to leave a message on a wall, friend somebody, view a profile and poke. Facebook Mobile uses SMS technology — the technology used in simple text messaging — to connect users, which is a significant change for the better, according to Hughes.
Facebook members using the Cingular, Nextel, Sprint or Verizon telephone services can access Facebook Mobile.
John Redman, Sprint New England communications manager, said the partnership with the Facebook is essential to Sprint’s success in the wireless marketplace.
“We’re trying to stay competitive in the marketplace,” Redman said. “It’s important to use this new technology to reach out to our customers.”
While users will have to pay regular rates for text messaging, Facebook Mobile will not charge users, which Hughes called one of the most vital features of the new technology.
Internet-to-mobile technology is nothing new, considering websites such as ESPN.com allow their users to connect via cell phones for news and score updates.
Rabble, a program created by Intercasting Corp. that lets users create a virtual website on their phones, complete with blogs, pictures and profiles, launched in March 2005. Derrick Oien, president and CEO of Intercasting, said Facebook’s leap to the mobile world reflects a “white-hot” industry.
Oien mentioned MySpace.com’s upcoming mobile launch on Helio — the mobile provider formed by the merger of Earthlink and SK Telecom — but added the launch will not take place until later in the year.
“All in all, it’s really exciting,” Oien said. “Social media, location, the context of social media is all going to be really big and exciting. Soon the consumer will say what works.”
Oien said it is important for networking sites to embrace the wireless carrier business model, and if these sites do not, their attempts at crossing over into the mobile world could prove as failures.
“From a carrier perspective, they have to look long and hard at who they partner with,” Oien said. “Facebook has seven, eight million customers. They make money off internet advertising. Carriers make money off data plans, carrier subscriptions. If these sites don’t support the carrier business model, I don’t think the carriers will jump on.”
Ultimately, Oien said it is up to the customers to dictate where the Facebook and other networking sites go next. Hughes also said he thinks user demand for mobile technology has allowed it to take off.
“Mobile technology is becoming more and more advanced,” Hughes said, “and people are using their mobile phones to do more and more.”
Hughes declined to comment on any other upcoming ventures for the Facebook, but Redman said anything is possible for internet-to-mobile technology.
“I don’t know what the next application is going to be,” Redman said.