They say time flies when you’re having fun. That said, garden variety “fun” doesn’t hold a candle to being the #1 mobile social networking developer for the top two carriers in the US. 2009 didn’t just “fly” - it broke the sound barrier.
Let’s dial the clock back: In January of last year, we were roughly two days into a soft launch of our “Notifier” product, a mobile application that combines access to social networks and live news feeds, with AT&T Wireless. To the casual onlooker, it was a low-key affair; but for iSkoot it marked a major milestone - our first foray out of “mobile Skype” territory and into the uncharted domain of integrated mobile social networking.
In the spring, Notifier found an invaluable home in AT&T’s new initiative, the AT&T Apps Beta program. Notifier was made available to a growing group of AT&T Beta testers, and we were able to tweak the application to carrier-grade quality based on candid, detailed feedback from actual AT&T customers.
In July, our new, improved and freshly re-branded app became ready for prime time, and our fine partners at AT&T introduced AT&T Social Net, the first-ever AT&T-branded Facebook + MySpace + Twitter application, to the world for the low, low price of, well, free. A big day for “firsts,” if we do say so ourselves.
AT&T Social Net launched for AT&T’s coolest devices, like the LG Neon and the Samsung Impression. Since then we’ve had been adding more and more devices to the supported handsets list, and even got AT&T Social Net preloaded on the Samsung Mythic and the Samsung Flight!
Along the way, we’ve been continually grateful for and humbled by the tremendous level of support AT&T has shown AT&T Social Net, from cameos on the AT&T Wireless homepage…
…to uber-slick window displays….
…to prime-time TV spots featuring college basketball star-gone-pro Tyler Hansbrough:
Fairly awesome stuff.
The launch with AT&T was one of iSkoot’s biggest achievements to date. So when the opportunity to work with Verizon popped up right on its heels, we were warmed up and ready to swing for the fence. iSkoot partnered with Verizon to launch Social Beat, a mobile application featuring Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and news plus Gmail and Google Talk, in mid November. Like AT&T, Verizon also made the bold move of making the application available for free, and Verizon customers appeared to be pretty enthused with the offering, if word on Twitter is an indication:
After offering Social Beat for top Verizon devices like the LG EnV and the LG Chocolate 3, Verizon followed up with a little holiday treat for Verizon’s “Prosumer” contingent: Social Beat was offered as a virtual preload on the Verizon BlackBerry Curve 2.
And then, wouldn’t you know it? It’s 2010: a brand new year, and what seems like an awfully long way out from the days the company known for mobile VoIP had a two-day old soft launch on their hands. We’d like to personally thank every single person at AT&T and Verizon who made 2009 such a groundbreaking year for iSkoot - we’re immensely excited about products, the partnerships and the momentum we’ve built.
We look forward with great anticipation and equal motivation to an exciting new year ahead. Stay tuned: more exiting news is coming down the pike all the time.
It’s been just under 5 months since AT&T first introduced AT&T Social Net to the world. We aren’t at liberty to divulge details, but let’s just say…the world noticed. As we here at iSkoot suspected, there was a heck of a lot of demand for mobile Facebook, Twitter and MySpace from people who didn’t want to pay boatloads for a top dollar space-age mobile handset. To the fearless users of the inaugural AT&T Social Net: We thank you. AND…we’ve got a little something new for ya.
Meet…the new version.
Veteran ATTSN users: You came, you talked, we listened. And now, a better-than-ever new build of AT&T Social Net is available for grabs at the AT&T MEdia Mall! We added some extra zip to make it faster, and threw in a few new bells and whistles based specifically on your feedback to enhance the entire mobile social experience. In no particular order, and in this blogger’s humble opinion, here are a handful of AT&T Social Net’s coolest new adds:
1. Retweeting
Spotted a shareworthy update in your Twitter feed? Now you can retweet posts from your Twitter feed directly from AT&T Social Net. It’s a one-click maneuver, and it’s awesome.
2. Read your @replies
Now there’s a whole tab in the Twitter section devoted exclusively to @replies. If anyone’s talking at you or about you on Twitter, now you’ll be the first to know.
3. Poke ‘em, like em, messege ‘em and more
Now ALL the stuff you wanna do on Facebook is done completely within the app. Like, all of it. Want to send your friend a message? Do it in the app. Want to “like” or comment on a post? Do that in the app too. Basically, you’ll never go out to the browser again, unless you want to look at something old or obscure. Jackpot!
4. See who’s commenting, and who likes what
When a post shows up in your feed or on your wall, you can not only read the update, now you can read what other people comment on it and see who gives it the ole Facebook thumbs up.
5. More News feeds
Now you can choose from over 50 different news sources! We’ve added Huffington Post, The Economist, Rotten Tomatoes, TMZ, Dictionary.com and a bunch of others. Get your news on.
6. Tie: MySpace Comments or MySpace Inbox
Now you can view both within AT&T Social Net. Which is cooler? I’m still on the fence. But I’m also glad they’re both in there. Now I can tell people to start sending me messages on MySpace again (which, as you can see from the video, hadnt been happening lately.) Amen.
Seeing is believing folks, so make for the AT&T MEdia Mall now and treat yourself to the new and improved AT&T Social Net. We think you’ll like what you see!
AT&T Social Net is an all-in-one mobile application with a live connection to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and feeds from over 35 leading news, sports & entertainment channels. The user just has to sign in once, subscribe to his/her channels of choice, and AT&T Social Net does the rest - updating automatically to always display the very latest in tweets, feeds, posts, updates, photo alerts and more. Users can respond in real time too, with tweets, @replies, messages, pokes, wall posts and status updates. The carousel menu of icons at the top of the screen makes for easy navigation from service to service - and the AT&T Social Net Home screen offers an integrated Update stream for quick access to the newest activity across all services.
The word from Mark Collins, vice president of voice and data products, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets:
“Five of the top 10 searches on our mobile Web portal are for social networking sites, a clear indication of the growing popularity of mobile social networking. With this app, we’re satisfying the increasing demand for aggregation apps that make it easy for customers to be active in multiple communities simultaneously.”
As the official press release notes, AT&T tapped iSkoot to develop AT&T Social Net, and iSkoot aficionados may spot a few parallels with iSkoot’s Notifier, introduced earlier this year. Notifier was one of the first applications featured in the AT&T Apps Beta - a program that lets developers test new applications with AT&T customers for feedback - and after a keen fine-tuning based largely on valuable insight from the beta testers, AT&T Social Net was born.
From Mark Jacobstein, iSkoot’s CEO:
“The feedback generated from Apps Beta helped us confirm some hypotheses and prioritize some features before general release. For example, we focused on ensuring seamless operation on touch-screen devices — a huge point of interest with Apps Beta users — and also added server-side content caching to improve app speed and responsiveness.”
Here’s a look at the application, fresh off the AT&T MEdia Mall, running on an LG Neon:
AT&T Social Net is available for download today on 20 devices, with more coming soon. AT&T customers can check to see if their devices are compatible here: www.att.com/socialnetdevices
Enormous gratitude goes out to everyone at AT&T for this fantastic opportunity!
