Virgin Mobile USA debuts social networking efforts

Virgin Mobile USA announced a pair of new mobile social networking initiatives promising consumers deeper integration with social media and community sites. Connect, designed for Helio by Virgin Mobile members, enables subscribers to display friend updates and activity from sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube in a dashboard-style mobile interface that connects directly to those sites. Connect enables users to aggregate status updates, invitations and requests, new photos and videos, comments and messages without logging out of one social networking site to access another. Virgin Mobile USA customers may also use Connect's integrated standard RSS reader to access favorite news sites, blogs and e-zines. The free service will initially launch on Helio devices including the Ocean, Mysto, Fin, Heat and Drift, and will roll out to Virgin Mobile USA prepaid handsets during the first quarter of 2009.

Virgin Mobile USA also debuted Mobile Lounge, a customer-exclusive mobile community available via the VirginXL storefront. In addition to offering a hub for Virgin subscribers to share ideas and opinions, Mobile Lounge also allows users to see which friends are online, and offers micro-blogging capabilities, discussion boards, chat rooms and profile creation tools. Members of Mobile Lounge can earn rewards points for writing blogs, posting photos and winning contests--points may be redeemed for wireless usage credits. Mobile Lounge is now accessible on Virgin Mobile USA mobile phones including the Shuttle, Flare and Slash.

For more on Virgin Mobile USA's new social networking efforts:
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