Vodafone cheers on developers with 360 vision

Vodafone 360, the UK operator’s social media interface and aggregation platform is making some headway. The UK firm said Tuesday that more than 7,000 apps have been made available to customers across eight European markets in the three months since the service launched.

By March 2010 the operator also expects to have shipped two million Vodafone 360 capable handsets, with the platform featured on some 50 different handsets.

Vodafone 360 features a specially designed user interface using Vodafone’s ‘proximity algorithm’ (it brings the most frequently contacted to the front of the list), which was built and designed on the LiMo Foundation’s Linux platform. The native functionality of 360 will focus on content aggregation – bringing together all contacts and content in one place and allowing customers access to different networking sites including Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk. Users can also create different contact groups across social networks, so as to share different information with different groups of people.

To keep up momentum with the developer community, Vodafone will hold its first 360 Developer Conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 15, 2010. The conference will feature interactive discussions on developer topics, providing tips on how to create and publish apps across Vodafone 360 devices, with developers given the opportunity to audition their apps and be rewarded with prizes.

With its 360 strategy, the carrier is looking to avoid becoming a bit pipe provider by tapping into what it hopes will prove a lucrative value added service and application revenue stream by acting as the gatekeeper. But it has been questioned as to how this strategy, first pioneered by former CEO Arun Sarin around own-branded handsets, will sit with those giving the power to third parties, such as Vodafone UK’s recent launch of the iPhone.