T-Mobile and Bebo Announce Social Networking Partnership

T-Mobile and Intercasting Corporation have added leading social networking sites Bebo and Piczo to T-Mobile’s ground-breaking My Social Sites service. UK users can now stay in touch with their favourite social networking sites with just one click. The My Social Sites application also allows users to upload pictures from their mobile phone direct to the sites.

My Social Sites is a mobile application that provides users with a single and easy to use interface, which allows social networkers to manage their most important sites in a simple way, direct from their mobile phone. Customers who always want to keep on top of what their friends are up to no longer have to worry about constantly checking their favourite sites for updates. Every time anything new is added, T-Mobile will send a message updating the user. People can then check their messages for free, keeping fully up-to-date whilst on the move.

Bebo and Piczo will be added to the existing My Social Sites – Xanga, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet and Vox and mobile community, Rabble. The technology behind My Social Sites is provided by Intercasting and its award-winning ANTHEM platform. The ANTHEM platform provides social networking category management for T-Mobile through applications, messaging and embedded handset features. Users can add popular new social networking sites as they become available to their mobile devices.

Pauline Lunn, Head of Beyond Voice at T-Mobile said: “More than 800 million people are predicted to use social networks via a mobile phone by 2012, (eMarketer, May 2008) and T-Mobile is tapping into this phenomenon. Our customers have told us that they want to stay in touch with their social networks, wherever they are and My Social Sites allows exactly that. By adding Bebo and Piczo to the service we’ve added two of the industry’s most popular sites.”

Ziv Navoth, SVP Marketing & Business Development at Bebo, said: "For an emerging generation the internet and social networking sites in particular are the place where they live their lives out online, but until today, logging off from the Internet also meant logging out of their network. My Social Sites will help our users to extend their Bebo experience by allowing them to converse with one another, share their passions, discover new forms of entertainment and express their identities regardless of where they are."

“Extending the Piczo experience to mobile devices is the next logical step in Piczo’s progression as a leading social network catering to the self expression of teens worldwide. With My Social Sites, Piczo members are able to express themselves through photos and stay connected with friends long after they’ve left the comfort of their computer. Our members asked for it – with partners like T-Mobile and Intercasting, we were able to deliver it,” Jeremy Verba, CEO of Piczo emphasized in a statement.

“Content creation, communication and managing cost are consistently top on the must-have feature list for mobile social networkers,” said Sean Kane, General Manager International at Intercasting Corporation. “My Social Sites delivers on all three with a powerful mobile experience.”

My Social Sites allows users to send replies, add comments or post pictures direct from their mobile phone. It costs just 5p to post a comment, send a message or accept a friend request or 20p to add a photo. Users can also search for friends, browse profiles and check out photos for only 20p for 24 hour access.