V3RT goes live

A small startup VCEL (Virtual Communication Expression & Lifestyle) has unveiled a new [0]social networking service for cell phones. All you need to do to keep in contact with your friends 24/7 is to [1]create a profile with their website, download a Java application for your cell phone (more than 20 models are supported already), and send an invitation to your buddies. Here we go: you can exchange comments, pictures, plan on activities together, etc. You'd have the same control over your profile either from phone or from web browser. They have a nice Java applet for your page, so you can leave your buddies a voice message right from your computer and so on.

Links: 0. http://www.vcellvibes.com/ 1. http://join.vcellvibes.com/

Will the Mobile Phone Become the Dominant Internet Platform?

The personal computer remains the dominant platform for accessing the Internet around the world. However, in many countries Internet access via the mobile phone is actually outpacing wireless access from a notebook PC. After all, there is a massive installed base of mobile phones globally, and wireless networks are expanding every day.

According to A.T.Kearney, while in 2004 only 36% of mobile phone users browsed the Internet or downloaded e-mail, that figure rose to 56%. In Japan 92% of users went online via their mobiles.

In a study just released, "The Face of the Web," Ipsos Insight found that 28% of mobile phone owners worldwide had browsed the Internet on a wireless handset, up slightly from 25% at the end 2004.

Brian Cruikshank of Ipsos noted, "Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies. It's becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people."

In fact, it was the Ipsos study that posited that mobile phones are poised to become the dominant Internet platform outside the home. "In the long term, many of today's PC-centric online activities could be complemented through the mobile phone or migrate to the mobile phone altogether, due to greater convenience and faster connection speeds," said Mr. Cruikshank. p>Mobile phone ownership is certainly on the rise around the world. The Ipsos survey showed ownership in major countries ranging from 61% of consumers in Canada to 95% in Japan.

Internet browsing via a wireless device is also growing in many global markets. France and the UK are exhibiting the strongest growth, while Internet usage via mobile phone in Japan also continues to grow rapidly. Today, four in 10 adults browse the Internet on their wireless handset in Japan, double the rate in 2003.

Over half (52%) of all mobile phone households today have sent or received a text message, and over a third (37%) have sent or received e-mail on a mobile phone. In general, almost all wireless device activities experienced growth in 2005 — including m-commerce, financial transactions, sending or receiving digital pictures and downloading entertainment.

Japan — followed by the UK, US and South Korea — leads the world in browsing the Internet via mobile phone for news and information.

All this activity aside, however, it should be noted that Ipsos found that the growth in Internet browsing on a mobile phone was flattening in some markets, specifically the US and Canada, where wireless Internet access via notebook PC appears to be emerging as the stronger out-of-home Internet platform.

M1 lowers 3G data prices

M1 lowers 3G data prices By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia 17/4/2006 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39352523,00.htm

SINGAPORE--Mobile operator MobileOne (M1) has slashed the price of its unlimited 3G data plan by 65 percent, in a bid to spur mobile broadband adoption in the island-state.

According to a statement Monday, M1 announced that from May, its premium SunSurf 100 3G data plan will cost S$68 (US$42) a month, instead of S$199 (US$124). The company hopes that the move will help align the benefits of 3G with that of fixed-line broadband, and make the service more affordable for business and individual users.

Rivals SingTel and StarHub currently price their unlimited 3G data plans at S$208.95 (US$130) and S$105 (US$65) respectively. Elsewhere in Asia, Malaysia's Maxis offers unlimited 3G data plans for RM120 (US$33) a month, while Hong Kong's 3 Hong Kong subscribers have yet to see unlimited 3G data packages from their mobile operator.

Said M1 chief executive officer Neil Montefiore: "The challenge for M1 is to help our customers access information, regardless of time or place. This very economical data plan will make it very convenient and cost-effective for our customers to switch from fixed-line broadband to 3G mobility."

He added: "We want to set a new price benchmark for wireless broadband access and to this end, the attractive rates we are offering should help increase 3G adoption as well as data usage."

Subscribers of M1's Sunsurf 100 3G data plan will receive a free Vodafone Mobile Connect Card (VMCC) that allows them to track data usage.

Montefiore also revealed M1's move to high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), dubbed 3.5G.

"M1 customers can look forward to much faster data speeds with the upgrade to HSDPA by the end of this year, taking wireless Internet access and the advantages of mobility in Singapore to a whole new level," he said.

Asian operators have been publicizing their HSDPA plans in recent weeks. Maxis expects to launch HSDPA services by year-end. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region that plan to do likewise include China, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan and Australia.

Hot to trot

Hot to trot

Mar 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition

A new service hopes to do for texting what Skype did for voice calls

TALK is cheap—particularly since the appearance of voice-over-internet services such as Skype. Such services, which make possible very cheap (or even free) calls by routing part or all of each call over the internet, have forced traditional telecoms firms to cut their prices. And now the same thing could be about to happen to mobile-phone text messages, following the launch this week of Hotxt, a British start-up.

Users download the Hotxt software to their handsets, just as they would a game or a ringtone. They choose a user name, and can then exchange as many messages as they like with other Hotxt users for £1 ($1.75) per week. The messages are sent as data packets across the internet, rather than being routed through operators' text-messaging infrastructure. As a result, users pay only a tiny data-transport charge, typically of a penny or so per message. Since text messages typically cost 10p, this is a big saving—particularly for the cost-conscious teenagers at whom the service is aimed.

Most teenagers in Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, pay for their mobile phones on a “pre-paid” basis, rather than having a monthly contract with a regular bill. Pre-paid tariffs are far more expensive: bundles of free texts and other special deals, which can reduce the cost of text messaging, are generally not available. For a teenager who sends seven messages a day, Hotxt can cut the cost of texting by 75%, saving £210 per year, says Doug Richard, the firm's co-founder. For really intensive text-messagers, the savings could be even bigger: Josh Dhaliwal of mobileYouth, a market-research firm, says that some teenagers—chiefly boys aged 15-16 and girls aged 14-15—are “supertexters” who send as many as 50 messages per day.

While this sounds like good news for users, it could prove painful for mobile operators. Text-messaging accounts for around 20% of a typical operator's revenues. With margins on text messages in excess of 90%, texting also accounts for nearly half of an operator's profits. Mr Richard is confident that there is no legal way that operators can block his service; they could raise data-transport costs, but that would undermine their own efforts to push new services. Hotxt plans to launch in other countries soon.

“The challenge is getting that initial momentum,” says Mr Dhaliwal. Hotxt needs to persuade people to sign up, so that they will persuade their friends to sign up, and so on. Unlike Skype, Hotxt is not free, so users may be less inclined to give it a try. But as Skype has also shown, once a disruptive, low-cost communications service starts to spread, it can quickly become very big indeed. And that in turn can lead to lower prices, not just for its users, but for everyone.

MySpacenomics

MySpacenomics
Commentary: Who's influencing consumption now?

By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Apr 13, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- These days a couple of ways to get distribution on the Internet are to make friends with the kids on MySpace, and those prolific opinion writers in the blogosphere.

Perhaps this doesn't come as a surprise to those in Silicon Valley. Over the last six months, a number of startup founders, CEOs and venture capitalists have said to me that a good way to get their service noticed is to get someone on MySpace to start evangelizing.

Indeed, MySpace -- the explosively popular social network site owned by News Corp (NWS) -- represents the generation Y consumer -- those born between 1981 and 1995. At 57 million strong, this demographic is the largest consumer group in the history of the U.S., according to OnPoint. See OnPoint site.

In other words, MySpace, which saw 36 million unique visitors in March and 19.6 billion page views, can drive consumption habits across the Web.

The traffic numbers are starting to bear this out.

Apparently, someone at MySpace has been proselytizing about the virtues of Technorati, which is the de facto search engine for blogs. San Francisco-based Technorati claims to capture about 95% of the blogs in existence. (The other 5% of blogs not indexed are private.)

Traffic to Technorati doubled to 1.8 million unique visitors in March from 962,000 in February, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Technorati CEO and co-founder David Sifry visited the MarketWatch studios earlier this week to explain why his service saw such explosive growth in traffic in a month's time.

 Watch my video interview with Sifry

Sifry said the traffic increases were due to the rise in blog popularity. Technorati now tracks 33.7 million blogs, about 60 times larger than the blogosphere three years ago. MarketWatch is helping to expand the blogosphere as Frank Barnako's blog was just launched this week.

The biggest drivers of traffic had always been the usual suspects, Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Time Warner's (TWX) AOL and Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN.

But according to Nielsen//NetRatings, nearly 15% of traffic from users logging on at home and going to Technorati came from MySpace blogs. In February, Technorati received no traffic references from MySpace, according to the Internet-traffic measurement company.

Given MySpace's significant audience base, any reference from MySpacers would give any service a nice boost.

YouTube has watched its traffic explode. In March, the video-hosting site saw 12.8 million unique visitors generating 486 million page views, which equated to the same number of page views to Google Video, NBC Universal, Walt Disney's (DIS) ABC.com, CBS Television combined. About 2% of YouTube traffic came from MySpace blogs. That's not a heck of a lot, but enough. Additionally, MySpace users are helping to create the videos. As of today, there are 5,378 videos tagged "MySpace." Other video and photo-sharing sites are also allowing their services to be easily integrated with MySpace in order to capture the MySpace generation. Go onto Slide.com, a photo-sharing site and you'll see a big banner that says: "Show off your pics on MySpace profile with Slide."

MySpacers could lead consumer trends, as long as News Corp keeps the technology robust enough to support their virtual lives. Here's an idea, why not start a MySpace consumer confidence index?

Now, before I'm accused of being hyperbolic, I do acknowledge that it's easier said than done.

Yahoo (YHOO) was once the place to go too.

Nonetheless, MySpace has the user today. So, there's much that can be offered to this virtual playground filled with eager experimenters and creators.

Services that specialize in areas such as health, business, or sports could create search boxes so that MySpacers can do specified searches in their space.

For instance, if someone is interested in trading stocks only, this would-be stock trader might want a little search box on his blog that only provides stock-market information.

MySpace started off as a place where would-be musicians could get noticed. It's not hard to imagine that others in that virtual world have other passions as well.

Imagine the possibilities?

Link to me please

Besides MySpace as a traffic driver, links have become the means to getting noticed as well.

Technorati's Sifry and I looked over the Technorati top 20 blogs. Boing Boing is No. 1 with 66,219 links from 20,223 sites. This site saw traffic jump to 760,000 unique visitors. Engadget is No. 2 and at No. 3 is PostSecret. Post secret has 64,307 links. It started off as a school project and a place where people could post secrets.

This blog fits the criteria of what makes a blog popular. The PostSecret blog writer is prolific and the subject matter is compelling, said Sifry. Being prolific and authoritative gets you an audience.

But there's more to it than just being a big mouth with an insatiable desire to share thoughts. It's about scratching someone's back so they can scratch yours.

"Getting even larger requires a lot of linking," he said. "If you "really want to drive distribution, you have to give it away," he said. For instance, many bloggers write mere snippets and link like crazy. Yes, I've taken note of many of them. They're considered the curators or synthesizers, said Sifry. If you link to someone, there is a higher probability that they will link back to you.

"Hyper-linking is a form of etiquette," said Sifry. "It's a way of tapping someone on the shoulder with a sign of respect."

Sign of respect, or an in-kind gesture? You decide.

'I'm the Google of... '

Last week, my column on search investments received a lot of attention. Ever since I quoted the founders of Truveo and Krugle referring to themselves as the Google of their respective specialties, I've received a number of e-mails from others who want to be Google, and maybe even better.

For instance, I received an e-mail with the slug: "Vertical search that's Smarter than Google." That came from someone at Ziff Davis Group alerting me to a new search engine focusing on the gaming space. This nameless search engine will be announced at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), to be held in Las Vegas in May.

Other search sites I was alerted to were Pixsy, a visual search site, Wandic.com, a search site for local search, and RedZee, a site that offers kid-safe Internet searches. Hmm. That could be interesting.

Meanwhile, Google finally got its voice patent granted. Bear Stearns analyst Bob Peck alerted me to the fact that Google was just granted a patent from the U.S. Patent Office. According to the patent office, "the voice patent provides search results from a voice search query."

Even though Google had tried to test this voice technology out several years ago, it has no plans on using that voice search technology any time soon, according to Google spokesperson Barry Schnitt. "Prospective product announcements should not be inferred from our patent applications," he said. Google also confirmed that it purchased the rights to a search technology developed by a 26-year-old PhD student at University of New South Wales. Read about the technology.

We're only 10 years into the commercialization of search. And, in the last five years 130 new search startups have been invested in by the venture community. I'm sure we're just getting started.

Mobile communities could fill 3G pipes

Mobile communities could fill 3G pipes

By Marguerite Reardon Story last modified Thu Apr 06 06:57:40 PDT 2006

LAS VEGAS--Social networking Web sites such as MySpace.com, which will soon go mobile, could become key applications driving data usage on new 3G wireless networks.

For years, mobile operators, which have spent billions of dollars to upgrade their networks to 3G wireless technologies, have tried to get customers to do more than talk on their cell phones. Despite their efforts, the vast majority of revenue still comes from voice calling.

But that could change in the next few years. A lot of fuss has already been made about people watching TV on their cell phones and downloading music over the mobile Net, but there's another application that could also generate significant 3G data usage--social networking.

"Carriers have invested a lot of money in their networks," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "And at this point it's a lot like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see which applications will stick. I doubt there will be any single killer application, but social networking on mobile phones could certainly be one that generates usage."

Within the last year social networking and community Web sites on the fixed-line Internet have really taken off, especially among teens and twentysomethings, who spend hours online creating profiles and sharing photos, videos and blogs.

MySpace, the most popular of the social networking sites, has more than 67 million members, and it adds roughly 250,000 members every day. MySpace is ranked as the second-most visited Web site on the Internet in terms of unique users, after Yahoo, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Last year Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the company for $580 million.

Though MySpace may be among the most famous of these sites, it's certainly not the only one on the Net. There are dozens of them, including Facebook.com, which is geared toward college students. There are also photo-sharing sites, such as Flickr, that have created popular online communities.

In the past, people using these services could access them only from their desktops or laptops. But now social networking is going mobile, allowing people to use their cell phones to upload pictures or send updates to blogs.

In March, MySpace announced a deal with the soon-to-be-launched wireless reseller Helio. And earlier this week, Facebook announced deals with Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless to enable users to post messages to their Facebook profiles via SMS text messaging. Flickr also lets people post photos from their cell phones and view them from handsets as well. Sprint Nextel has created its own photo-sharing site, called PCS Picture mail. It's expected to launch this spring.

There also are new companies in the game, such as San Diego-based Intercasting, which is offering a service called Rabble. Like MySpace and Facebook, Rabble lets users create profiles so they can share photos, videos and blogs with other members of the Rabble group. Cingular and Verizon Wireless have already signed up to offer the service, charging customers $2.99 per month for access to the community.

Ubiquitous and wireless In many ways, cell phones are the ideal tools for social networking and building online communities. Not only are people rarely without their phones, but today's handsets come equipped with sophisticated tools as well, such as cameras and digital music and video players and recorders, that can be used for documenting life. Mobile-handset makers Nokia and Sony Ericsson are even embedding technology into some of their phones that's designed to make it easier for users to upload pictures and text to blogs. These phones are solid tools for people wanting to share photos, video clips or songs with their online communities.

"Cell phones have become essential accessories," said Anil Malhotra, chief alliance officer for Bango, a company that helps wireless-content providers charge users for accessing their content. "And they're also perfect capture devices. You can take pictures, record sound, send text messages. It's a great tool for creating your own content."

What's more, those in the teen and twentysomething crowd--the biggest users of online social networks--also happen to be some of the heaviest users of mobile data services such as text messaging and downloadable ring tones.

As major mobile operators in the U.S. roll out their new 3G wireless services, more people are using them to create their own mobile Web sites. A German company called Peperoni Mobile and Internet Software, which since 2001 has provided software tools that let people all over the world build their own mobile Web sites, said it has seen an increase within the last six months of people using its software to create their own mobile Web pages. Though the company has only about 500,000 users today, it says it's signing up new ones at the rate of about 20 percent to 25 percent per month, many of them in the U.S.

When people publish a mobile Web site, they don't want to think about which phones people will use to view it. That's why network operators and cell phone makers need to work together to make it easier for users to have a unified experience.

--Marcus Ladwig, chief operating officer, Peperoni

"Phone penetration in the U.S. has pretty much caught up with Europe in the last couple of years," said Marcus Ladwig, chief operating officer for Peperoni. "And now we're seeing a lot of these people wanting to use the capabilities on their phones to share images and other things, so they're using our tools to build their own mobile Web sites."

Peperoni struck a deal earlier this year with Bango to allow its users to set up shop on the mobile Internet. Bango's technology lets people who've created mobile Web sites charge for content they distribute on their site.

Fixing the bugs Experts say these are still the early days for the mobile Internet in general. And there still are significant issues that need to be worked out. For one, cell phone makers have been building products with different mobile Web requirements, which makes it difficult for software developers to adapt existing Web pages for the mobile Internet.

"When people publish a mobile Web site, they don't want to think about which phones people will use to view it," said Ladwig. "That's why network operators and cell phone makers need to work together to make it easier for users to have a unified experience."

Another problem is that the sophisticated cell phones capable of taking pictures and playing video and music are expensive, with some costing as much as $300. Additionally, people uploading or downloading information from these social networking mobile Web sites will also have to pay for the bandwidth they use while doing so over the mobile network. Prices on data packages vary between $10 and $25 per month.

And even though mobile operators want people to use their new 3G services, they've been reluctant to give up control of where customers go on the mobile Internet. Some carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, restrict users to their own menu of services.

And some experts, such as Forrester Research's Golvin, are skeptical that cell phones will ever be able to offer enough functionality to replace PCs when it comes to creating and sharing content.

"Cell phones are great enhancements and tools for existing bloggers or for people who are already sharing photos online," he said. "Cell phones might be good for updating sites on the fly, but the PC is still the best place to sit down and organize your content."

Copyright ©1995-2006 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Singapore startup takes on BlackBerry market

Singapore startup takes on BlackBerry market

By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia 5/4/2006 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39348402,00.htm

SINGAPORE--A local startup has unveiled a Java-based mobile application suite that could give Blackberry a run for its money.

According to Michael Yin, CEO of Singapore-based Mozat, the company's mOrange software for cellphones combines commonly-used Internet services into a single application.

Developed by a 10-man development team, mOrange includes push e-mail, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, Webcam, remote desktop access, calendaring and contact list services, Yin said. The tools, developed at a cost of S$500,000 (US$308,900), are platform-independent and work on top of 3G (Third-Generation) and GPRS (general packet radio service) cellular networks.

"We hope to be the Google of the mobile world," Yin said, adding that the software and its accompanying services will be offered for free. mOrange will be officially launched in June this year.

Mozat is targeting young professionals and students who may not have ready access to Research In Motion's Blackberry push-email devices. Future iterations of the software would allow the company to provide paid services such as Internet telephony, Yin said.

Beta testing for mOrange started in February this year, and Mozat has since gathered more than 100 users who signed up to evaluate and provide feedback on the product, Yin said.

"We hope to attract 500 million users within the next three to five years," he said.

The push e-mail tool in mOrange can be deployed by users of Web-based e-mail services such as Gmail, as well as corporate e-mail applications based on Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes and POP (Post Office Protocol).

Yin said POP e-mail support means companies no longer need a BlackBerry server or purchase server software from the likes of Good Technology, to deliver push e-mail to employees' mobile devices. Telecommuters can also reply to and send e-mail messages on the go, together with file attachments, according to Yin.

He also assured cellphone users that the mOrange service is reliable, and that the company is mindful about ensuring data security.

"Our infrastructure is made up of both Windows and Linux servers, and can support up to 100,000 concurrent users," he explained. "User data is also encrypted with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology, and is as secure as the BlackBerry service."

Another popular feature among mOrange beta testers, Yin said, is remote desktop, where users can drag-and-drop files into a designated folder on their PCs and access it through their mobile devices. "This allows sales representatives, for example, to [browse the folder and] pull out product brochures for their customers directly via their mobile phones," he explained.

With the push RSS, he added, users will be automatically informed each time their favorite Web sites are updated, including stock alerts, entertainment news and blogs.

Mozat has also worked with local shopping malls such as Wisma Atria, to provide live camera feeds to mobile devices. These users can also watch video streams from Webcams that are attached to their PCs, on their cellphones, Yin said, noting this application can be used for surveillance purposes. He added that this service can be used to stream live traffic video, and monitor traffic conditions, of major highways and roads in Singapore.

Several local and overseas telecoms operators including StarHub in Singapore, Canada's SaskTel, South America's Tigo as well as Vodafone, are currently evaluating mOrange, Yin said. But he could not put a time frame on when the telcos would introduce the software to their subscribers.

Yin noted that as telcos face falling revenues from voice traffic, applications such as mOrange could encourage consumption of data services among cellphone users, and increase the service provider's average revenues per user.

Mozart's company profile Founded in 2002, Mozat received first-round funding worth S$600,000 (US$370,860) from Singapore's Economic Development Board and the National University of Singapore. The company is now in talks with several venture capitalists in Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, to secure another round of funds that will be pumped into product research and development.

Social Networking Goes Mobile

Social Networking Goes Mobile MySpace, Facebook Strike Deals With Cell Companies; A New Set of Safety Concerns By LI YUAN and REBECCA BUCKMAN April 4, 2006; Page D1

In a development likely to generate dismay from some parents and teachers, social networking sites MySpace and Facebook are going mobile.

Tens of millions of teenagers spend countless hours logging on to such sites, updating their profiles, posting pictures, writing blogs and exchanging messages. Until now, the services have been largely tethered to desktops or laptops. Now, Facebook Inc., a popular social-networking Web site among college students, and Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will make it possible for users to post messages on Facebook's home pages or search for other users' phone numbers and email addresses from a cellphone.

MySpace, the most popular social networking Web site in terms of unique visitors, has made a deal with wireless venture Helio Inc. that later this spring will allow MySpace users to do such things as send photos and update the blogs on their MySpace online profile by cellphone. Others who access that profile would instantly be able to see and read about what's happening at, say, a local hot spot.

Wireless companies are pushing to offer more social-networking features because the young people that gravitate to these services also tend to be the heaviest users of text messaging, picture messaging and ring-tone downloads. These services are becoming increasingly important as growth in cellphone service subscription is expected to decline and rate competition intensifies.

Some parents, educators and law-enforcement officials have concerns about the potential dangers of social-networking sites. Some of the sites have been accused of exposing children to risqué content and sexual predators. The possible role of MySpace also surfaced in separate investigations into the deaths of two teens, one in New Jersey and one in California. Jo Anne Swyers, a lieutenant at a sheriff's department in Dodge County, Wis., says the new wireless social-networking features will make it harder for law enforcement to protect children.

All major cellphone carriers say they offer free parental-control services. Parents can either disable or lock data services if they want to keep their children from using social-networking services, or they can call the providers to turn off features. Chris DeWolfe, MySpace chief executive officer, says that the Web site "takes our users' safety very seriously" and reviews pictures and other materials. Helio says it will require MySpace users to affirm that they're 18 years or older when signing in. AirG Inc. has a staff of 15 that monitors traffic and filters out inappropriate words, pictures, and numbers and texts that look like phone numbers and addresses.

The cellphone services of MySpace and Facebook, so far, have been mostly limited to text messages, and some new features don't go much beyond that. John Harrobin, a Verizon Wireless vice president, says safety concerns about social-networking sites are one reason the company's deal with Facebook is limited to text messaging for now. A Facebook spokeswoman says that extending some Facebook services to cellphones "doesn't pose any additional privacy risks" since the same privacy settings and controls that people put on Facebook apply to phone services.

While scaled-down social-networking services have been available to cellphone users for a few years, the latest deals aim to make the sites' core features and functions available anywhere. Previously, such mobile features consisted of updates and alerts via text message that often required users to log back on to the Web site to respond. The new features, while not the equivalent of using the full Web site on the go, are a significant step forward for the social-networking concept, in some cases allowing users to look up names and browse message boards wirelessly.

Social-networking sites have become hugely popular on the Internet by allowing users to create personalized Web pages and share them with others. In February, Facebook sites had 10.5 million unique visitors, compared with 37.3 million visitors to rival MySpace.com, according to research firm comScore Media Metrix, which makes it the second most-visited site on the Internet, behind Yahoo.com of Yahoo Inc. Facebook has recently talked with media and Internet companies, including Viacom Inc., about possible partnerships or being acquired by them. News Corp. last year paid $580 million, plus a $69 million loan, to buy the parent company, Intermix Media Inc., of MySpace.com.

Cellphones can also take social networking beyond what is possible on computers because they make it possible to identify the approximate location of callers. Cingular subscribers, for example, have access to CoolTalk, a service from AirG, and Rabble, developed by Intercasting Corp. Users of these services can specify whether they want to search for other members within a one-mile, five-mile or 20-mile radius or search by ZIP Code, neighborhood or city. Once they get in touch, users can communicate by phone, text message or even send photographs before deciding to meet. So if the other person is nearby, such as in a coffee shop, the two people can meet immediately.

Wireless companies usually charge five to 10 cents for each text message received and sent. They also sell a bucket of text messages for $5 to $10 a month. Picture messaging costs much more. Sprint charges $5 a month plus bandwidth usage if phone users send only a few messages a month. For people who send a lot of pictures or want to browse the Web on their phones, Sprint recommends $15-to-$25-a-month data packages that allow unlimited usage.

Yesterday Facebook's new mobile services were made available to students at three colleges -- Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. They will be available to students at more than 2,000 universities by the end of this month and high-school users of Facebook by early May, company officials say.

Any phones with text-messaging capabilities can support the new Facebook services; students don't have to download special software or pay extra, though they may pay more total fees for data usage if they send more text messages.

Facebook also has moved its popular "poking" application to phones: Users "poke" others on Facebook by sending quick, blank messages -- recipients get a notification that says "you've been poked" -- that indicates someone is thinking about them. In addition, students can now use their phones to locate phone numbers or email addresses of other Facebook users; they send a text message to the address "fbook," a centralized directory that looks up the name. (Facebook users can use privacy controls to limit those who can access phone numbers and other identifying information.)

Industry analysts say that social networking on cellphone is still in its early stage, and it isn't clear if it will become popular. Cellphones that support more sophisticated services can cost as much as $300, which may be out of reach for many teenagers and college students. They also would have to pay an extra $10 to $25 a month for data packages.

--Jessica E. Vascellaro contributed to this article.

Write to Li Yuan at li.yuan@wsj.com1 and Rebecca Buckman at rebecca.buckman@wsj.com2 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114411026875415973.html

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Identity Theft - A real growth industry

While working as an R&D Manager at Visa in the mid-nineties, I had the chance to do a lot of thinking about payment systems, identity, trust, security - all the things that have to be present for value to be exchanged between parties. Visa was heavily involved with the then newly emerging field of public key cryptography as a way of enabling payments on the Internet. The problem was that the systems being proposed were hopelessly complex to use and to implement. Thinking about the societal implications of using certificates and computer stored identity, I became increasingly concerned about the potential for identity theft and false accusations. If everyone agrees that a method is secure, then there is a natural tendency to assume guilt if the method says the person is involved. As we have seen with fingerprints (not unique after all), DNA (not unique, but statistically significant), and biometrics (easily fooled by Jello), it is dangerous to rely on technology to ascertain identity to the exclusion of all other factors. My major concern about storing one's identity in a computer, or chip, or cellphone is what happens when it is stolen. Indeed, the fact that identity is available to be stolen guarantees that it will be. No amount of encryption mathematics is going to prevent misuse by the average customer who fails to safeguard what has now become the key to his entire identity and by implication, wealth. Which all leads to the recent release of a report by the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics in the US, entitled "Identity Theft, 2004". It appears that the identity theft industry has grown, and continues to grow, quite nicely. The press release headline for the report says it best -

3.6 MILLION U.S. HOUSEHOLDS LEARNED THEY WERE IDENTITY THEFT VICTIMS DURING A SIX-MONTH PERIOD IN 2004

Spy program snoops on cell phones

Spy program snoops on cell phones

By Joris Evers, CNET News.com New software that hides on cell phones and captures call logs and text messages is being sold as a way to monitor kids and spouses. But one security company calls it a Trojan horse. The FlexiSpy application captures call logs, text messages and mobile Internet activity, among other things. The software, released at the beginning of March, sells for US$49.95 and is advertised by Bangkok, Thailand-based Vervata as a tool to monitor kids and unfaithful spouses. The data captured is sent to Vervata's servers and is accessible to customers via a special Web site.

Similar surveillance software for PCs already exists and has raised the ire of groups fighting domestic violence, who fear it may be used by abusive spouses.

FlexiSpy has attracted a different kind of criticism from security company F-Secure, which has labeled the software a Trojan, or a malicious program that disguises itself as something innocuous.

"This application installs itself without any kind of indication as to what it is," Jarno Niemela wrote on the Finnish antivirus maker's corporate blog Wednesday. "And when it is installed on the phone, it completely hides itself from the user."

FlexiSpy could be used by miscreants as part of malicious software that targets phones, Niemela wrote. Alternatively, an attacker could try sending the program to phones via a Bluetooth connection and trust that there are enough curious people to install it. F-Secure has updated its security software for mobile phones to detect the program.

Vervata could not be immediately reached for comment, but in a question-and-answer section of the FlexiSpy Web site, the company insists that the program is not malicious.

"FlexiSpy requires to be consciously installed and configured by someone, unlike a Virus or Trojan which spreads automatically without any action," the section reads.

FlexiSpy is available for cell phones that run the Symbian operating system, such as Nokia Series 60 handsets. Vervata plans to release by the end of April a version for Research In Motion's BlackBerry, as well as for devices that run Microsoft's Windows Mobile Pocket PC operating system, according to the company's Web site.

Vervata is still working on "FlexiSpy Pro," which will log e-mail and multimedia messages, in addition to the other data, according to the company's Web site. That version will also include a "monitoring" feature that lets the user call the target cell phone from a preset number and listen in on what's going on in the background, in much the same way a baby monitor works.