Mplayit, which operates social mobile application stores on the Facebook platform, has announced plans to bring its technology to new international operator partners. Mplayit has been available for Telefonica O2 customers in the UK since November 2009 and has now announced partnerships with Rogers in Canada, and with Australian operator, Telstra.
Mplayit has been helping US carriers including Sprint and AT&T and publishers, including EA, to offer playable discovery for mobile games and apps since late 2008. The company says the new deals point to a broader trend in the carrier market. Traditionally, says Mplayit, mobile operators have failed to properly exploit the power of the web in merchandising their application catalogues to customers, with the rapid growth in the social web in the past two years leaving many even further behind. Now, with the growth in Smartphone penetration and increased competition from device manufacturers themselves, mobile operators are recognizing the need to improve mobile application discovery and provide their customers with the best experience possible. Mplayit is partnering with operators to help them achieve these goals.
Carriers throughout the world are facing unprecedented competitive pressure in terms of both app downloads and customer mindshare, says Mplayit CEO, Michael Powers. We offer them a simple and cost effective way to plug into users social graphs, massively improve their service proposition, and help drive additional app downloads like never before.
Mplayit offers search and try-before-you-buy playable previews of popular mobile applications on leading mobile platforms and is accessible from a standard web or mobile browser. Users can rate, comment, and recommend individual apps to their social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. In addition, Mplayit's 'Apptivity' feed gives users a view of the most played and recommended apps in real time.
In December 2009, Mplayit launched full support for Android, on top of its existing support for iPhone, mobile Java and BlackBerry services.