Sprint Nextel has announced two new services today, enabling users to access social networking sites, and letting customers locate each other using GPS technology.
Providing better browsing options for access to social networking sites such as Xanga, Rabble and LiveJournal means that users will have more reason to use mobile browsing and stay better connected with friends. Partnering with Loopt, Sprint Nextel is also allowing users to geo-locate one another via GPS, within another private network of friends. These services are not free, however. They'll both run you $2.99 per month. Some say that these offerings are an attempt to generate more revenue from customers and encourage more time spent using premium services, such as mobile broadband access.
With both AT&T and Verizon using the Loopt application (for various reasons) to no avail, there's also some worry that it may not work with Sprint Nextel customers either, though web-based, geo-tagging networks seem to be gaining some steam, and Rabble's own service offers some location-based networking features as well as a partnership with LiveJournal. The onset of the iPhone has surely raised the stakes and spurred some development within the larger mobile community, as some look to optimize their services for the iPhone and others look to provide even more services for the rest of the world that hasn't gotten the iPhone yet.