Facebook Platform Cozies Up To Mobile Phones

facebooklogo2.gifFacebook has announced their Facebook mobile platform at CTIA. While Facebook has always included mobile applications, todays additions allow for deeper integration with the between mobile phones and the website.

The platform is being improved through two key additions, the ability to show content exclusively to mobile phones, and integrate SMS. Mobile specific content will be controlled by a new FBML tag, “fb:mobile”. Any content between the tags will be rendered exclusively on the mobile site. The other, and more significant addition, is the opening of Facebook’s SMS platform, which will let applications and users interact with each other on Facebook over SMS. SMS integration is key as Facebook takes on international aspirations. The SMS market has been expected to grow to over $67 billion annually by 2012. More details on the platform are available here.

Perhaps feeling a bit left out after the iPhone integration, Blackberry has been announced as one of the first applications to take advantage of the new platform. To sign up, you just direct your Blackberry to their Facebook application page to install.

Here is TechCrunch France’s editor, Ouriel Ohayon, with his rave review of the new BB Facebook app.

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