CTIA: VZW, AT&T get social

SAN FRANCISCO—Verizon Wireless and AT&T have both jumped on the same social networking bandwagon, each announcing today at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment a new mobile portal that integrates multiple social networking communities into a single interface -- both based on the same vendor’s platform.

Called SocialLife on the VZW deck and My Communities on AT&T’s, the applications are powered by Intercasting’s Anthem platform, a social network aggregator that taps into the application interfaces of numerous social engines throughout the Web, displaying updates, comments, messages, friend requests and other information from multiple sites on a single screen. MySpace is the anchor social site in both clients, but both operators’ portals also tap into AsianAve, BlackPlanet, FaithBase, GLEE, LiveJournal, MiGente, Photobucket and Rabble. Verizon’s additionally offers access to MTV Tr3s, while AT&T’s service includes Xanga. Though the full functionality of all of those sites isn’t available on the portals, Intercasting has included some innovative mobile-specific tweaks to the platform, such as the ability to directly upload camera-phone photos directly to profiles.

Notably absent from the both operators’ lists is Facebook, the fastest-growing social network community on the Web. Facebook appears to be taking a more independent approach to the mobile Web, launching its own applications for Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry as well as developing its own carrier-independent WAP portal. So far AT&T has been the only operator to specifically partner with Facebook, though the deal is little more than including a link to Facebook Mobile in AT&T’s MEdia Net portal. Part of the reason may be price. Facebook has offered its application and access to its mobile services for free. Verizon Wireless meanwhile is charging $1.50 a month for access to SocialLife in addition to data charges, while AT&T is charging for My Communities $3 a month.