Virgin Mobile adds two social networking features

Virgin Mobile knows its customers. They’re mainly of the teenage and early 20s crowd, with whom social networking is a big thing. So what have they done? They’ve launched two social networking services. There are for use with both their prepaid and postpaid customers — postpaid meaning current Helio customers. These include “Connect,” which gives users updates from social media and networking sites, and “Mobile Lounge,” which is a “Virgin Mobile USA customer-exclusive mobile community.” It can be found on the VirginXL deck.

“Virgin Mobile USA and Helio customers are some of the most connected mobile users out there, and for that reason we continue to introduce innovative features that make it easier than ever for them to stay connected, share and communicate with friends,” said Doug Britt, Vice President, Data Services for Virgin Mobile USA.

Connect will launch initially with Helio customers, and expand to VM prepaid customers in the first quarter of 2009. This combines the functionality of various social sites, like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. It makes use of RSS feeds to keep users up to date. Moble Lounge is said to offer VM customers a play to “share ideas and opinions.” So is it like a forum? Kinda sounds like it. It does contain “micro-blogging capabilities” as well as chat rooms and discussion boards. Any VM customers out there want to take this for a spin?]]>