This morning at the start of the Mobile World Congress we announced Facebook for SIM whereby the application is embedded on the card. This means that anyone, with even the most basic phone can access the core services from the leading social network.
There’s also no need for a data subscription opening up the service to a potential market of billions. Here is what Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook had to say about the solution:
“Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,” said “Gemalto has developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook in an affordable way.”
Facebook already communicate on the fact that more than 200 million people access the network on their mobile (from the total of >500 million users). The majority of these mobile users have high-end smartphones so it’s easy to see the impact of our announcement. This was picked up by The Register in their article today:
The SIM-based client isn’t as pretty as its smartphone contemporaries – don’t expect picture streams or sliding interfaces – but it was developed with the help of Facebook, and provides text-menu-based interaction with Facebook – including status updates, pokes and friend requests – to any GSM-compatible handset
Over at the show many visitors have already seen the demo but for those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s a short clip of Alexandre Szyda from the Gemalto Telecom Marketing team explaining the product and its advantages for users and mobile operators.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Q1KX4nlsk
Facebook for SIM, which is part of our Digital Life Management offer, is easy to use and available to everyone. No data contract or application download is needed, because the software is embedded in the SIM and it uses SMS technology. As a result, it works for prepaid as well as for pay-monthly customers. Following an initial limited free trial, Facebook for SIM then operates on a subscription model via an unlimited pass for a given period of time. Watch the product animation to see how it works.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u98wGKS7u0
The demo will be on show at Mobile World Congress all week so drop by the stand in Hall 8 on stand 8A102 and take a look.
