Jul 13, 2011 3:40 PM,

Facebook app for feature phones offers 90-days free data – but not in the U.S.

By Michelle Maisto

Facebook teamed with 19 international carriers to launch a new feature phone app with 90 days of free data service. Why? Based on Java instead of Brew, the app may not work on some of he feature phones of major U.S. carriers.

Facebook may not yet have an official app for the Apple iPad (MDP: Facebook, Planning an iPad App, Looks to Work Around Apple) but yesterday it went after a far larger audience, introducing a Facebook for Every Phone app for feature phone users. To entice as large a crowd as possible — 2,500 phone models are currently supported — Facebook also teamed up with a number of carriers, offering free data access to the app for 90 days.

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The list of carriers agreeing to those terms includes 19 global operators – but none in the U.S.

That fact perhaps hints at where Facebook still has room to grow its user base – not to mention where feature phones rule: Aircel, Airtel and Idea in India, Banglalink in Bangladesh, Celcom in Malaysia, Smart and Globe in the Philippines, Smartfren and Telkomsel in Indonesia, Ufone in Pakistan and Vodafone in Turkey, among others. Brazil's TIM, Germany's O2 Telefonica and Three in the U.K. and Indonesia are also on the list.

Facebook offered no explanation for why U.S. operators were absent from the list, but even if U.S. operators wanted to partner up with Facebook, some of them would have some difficulty delivering the app. Many older feature phones from operators including Verizon, Leap Wireless and MetroPCS are based on a version of Qualcomm’s BREW platform that does not natively include a Java virtual machine. That could limit the reach of the Facebook for Every Phone app on those carriers.

As part of its announcement, Facebook did, however, promise to extend its new app to “even more handsets in the future.” So, U.S. carriers, and their customers, may get to enjoy that 90-day data subsidy some day after all.

The new Facebook app is available in app stores such as GetJar, Appia and Mobile Weaver, or can be downloaded by visiting m.facebook.com. It lets users engage with Facebook in a ways designed to feel like a smartphone-like experience, even on simple feature phones. They can view and upload photos, view news feeds and their inbox, and find friends and view profiles. It's now available around the world on Java-enabled phones.

"This experience is optimized to use less data than other Java apps or mobile sites," Facebook said in a July 12 statement, "making it much more affordable for people to use when the 90-day period ends."