T-Mobile gets friendly with Bebo, Piczo

Mobile operator T-Mobile UK said Wednesday it has struck a deal with mobile social networking platform Intercasting, to bring the Bebo and Piczo sites to the mobile.

T-Mobile said it would integrate the two social networking sites into its My Social Sites service, a mobile application that provides users with a single interface for managing a number of social networking sites direct from their handset.

Users can set up alerts so that they receive a text message every time their friends update their own pages and can also post photos direct from their phones.

T-Mobile said it costs £0.05 to post a comment, send a message or accept a friend request or £0.20 to add a photo. Users can also search for friends, browse profiles and check out photos for £0.20 for 24 hour access.

Bebo and Piczo will be added to the existing social networks on My Social Sites – Xanga, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, Vox and Rabble.

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.”