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.
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!
Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret, the Wall Street Journal duo known for delivering the definitive word on new “gadgets, web services and consumer technologies” recently got their hands on iSkoot’s newest mobile app, the iSkoot Notifier.
Katie and Notifier (running on a Samsung Propel from AT&T) spent the week getting to know one another, and yesterday she delivered her full report in WSJ’s “The Mossberg Solution.” You can also check it out in the Personal Journal section of today’s print edition of WSJ. We know we did. And true to form, Team Mossberg’s once-over was a tough but fair one.
Katie definitely gets what we’re up to. Notifier integrates Facebook, Twitter, email, IM, and news feeds into a single application that updates in real time and is built for ordinary mobile phones rather than souped-up PDAs or smartphones. The app is deliberately engineered to give low-cost cell phones, as Katie puts it, a “smart-phone-like shot in the arm.”
After a week’s worth of poking and prodding, Katie confirms that Notifier offers a worthwhile way to “stay plugged in and notified of the latest goings-on with friends and email” and “an economical alternative” to more costly smart phones. Though she does point to some of Notifier’s yet-to-be-rectified kinks–a handful of snags in the UI (getting smoothed out as we speak) and its house arrest in the phone’s “Applications” folder (currently accepting offers for pre-load )–she affirms that for the many people out there who want to stay connected without investing in the high-profile hardware, iSkoot’s Notifier is a workable solution.
Many thanks and much gratitude go out to Katie, and to the Wall Street Journal for the thorough review our newest release. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity and for your insight!
)–she affirms that for the many people out there who want to stay connected without investing in the high-profile hardware, iSkoot’s Notifier is a workable solution. 
