Mobile social network provider Fring has
announced the launch of fringAdd-ons?, a stream of new application add-ons that integrate with its own mobile platform of mobile instant messenger and voIP.
New fringAdd-ons released today include widgets for popular social networking sites, as well as with video search and streaming service VTapTM. This move illustrates the efforts being made by mobile social network providers to bridge the gap between the range of options and functionalities available on classic social sites and those accessible on mobile-based networks such as Fring.
Users ? dubbed ?Fringsters? by the site ? will be able to access their Facebook and Orkut accounts directly through Fring on their mobile handset and opt-in to receive real-time updates of selected events on their profile pages, as well as incoming e-mail alerts through a Google Gmail notifier. These functionalities can be installed through a new and automatically updated ?Manage Add-ons? menu.
Fring?s co-founder and chief executive officer Avi Shechter says that interactivity is being taken yet one step further by extending it to the developmental side of the network. He comments, ?We look forward to rolling out new fringAdd-ons developed by third parties and independent developers to enrich the experience even further as soon as they become available.?
To this end, Fring has made it possible for all Fringsters who command a basic knowledge of XML/PHP to create their own Add-ons and submit them to the site for consideration. This is done using the recently released fringAPI, which can be obtained by visiting the developer zone at developers.fring.com.
Facebook and
Orkut's integration with Fring join popular communication tools such as
Skype,
Windows Live Messenger,
Google Talk,
ICQ,
Twitter,
Yahoo! and
AIM.
Fring presently operates on all Symbian Series 60 devices, Sony Ericsson UIQ Smartphones, Windows Mobile and iPhone devices, and is working to expand this base.