Samsung may be looking to better compete in the multimedia mobile industry with its latest UK promotion for the new f400 handset. In an effort to promote the new handset, which has a distinct focus on music, Samsung is promoting an application that resides across multiple social networks and has mobile access as well.
The mobile application itself is pretty interesting, and the use of a social networking app to promote a new product is equally notable. Such a media-centric device from Samsung is geared towards the teens-to early 20s demographic, and in promoting the mobile handset as something that does more than just make calls, it emphasizes the multi-layered way in which it can be used for communicating with friends (and promoting artists). While this application may not enable Samsung to directly compete with the dominating iPhone, it does help further along the use of mobile devices for personal computing.
There are a few major trends going on in the mobile app industry, and one could argue that most of these trends are heavily related to the iPhone, as it opened doors for app creation and mobile productivity. Other mobile manufacturers almost immediately began working on devices that were more media-centric or had limited touch screen capabilities, and I've seen more than my fair share of Blackberry commercials in the past month.