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  • LinkedIn Teams Up With Snaptu To Launch Smartphone-Like App For Feature Phones

    Leena Rao

    Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

    Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

    Professional social network LinkedIn has a rapidly growing userbase outside of the U.S., and increasingly users want to access the network from their mobile phone. But until now, the company has only offered smartphone apps, as opposed to feature phone apps. Feature phones actually represent 80% of the devices sold worldwide. Today, LinkedIn is teaming up with mobile developer Snaptu to launch a rich application for feature phones.

    According to the announcement, the app will work across 2,500 device models, including those from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and LG. Snaptu focused on bringing the most commonly used LinkedIn features in the new app, allowing users to access their update stream, search professionals on the network, invite fellow users to join their network and accept invitations. Users can also access full users profiles of professionals on LinkedIn.

    Facebook also made a similar move, partnering with Snaptu to launch a similar rich app for feature phones. For LinkedIn, this app is particularly important as much of its active userbase is international, where feature phones are more popular that smartphones.

    Company: Snaptu
    Website: snaptu.com
    Launch Date: February 20, 1994
    Funding: $6M

    Snaptu (formerly Moblica) is both a product and a company–the goal of both is to significantly improve the way the world uses the mobile web. Specifically, our goal is to help millions of mobile users access the web easily and quickly—regardless of the mobile phone they’re using. For mobile consumers our Snaptu application delivers a fast, fun and effective user experience for popular mobile Internet applications on virtually every mobile phone. For online service providers, media...

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