Mobile marketing firm AlwaysOnMessage has partnered with Telefonica’s web and app developer platform, BlueVia, to create a suite of products that will provide SMS- and MMS-based information services relating to product pricing, weather, social networks, translation and currency conversion. The first suite of products is due for release later this year fall under the banner of Smart features for feature phones.

The products, which will launch over the next six months, will allow feature phone users to experience smartphone-style services by using shortcodes to remotely access information. The services will be freely available to users on Telefonica’s networks around the world, including O2 in the UK, though the two companies have been unable to confirm what charges, if any, will apply when users are away from their home network and roaming on a Telefonica, or non-Telefonica, network.

“As the demand for mobile content and services continues to grow, feature phone users will now be able to access services that were previously confined to smartphone users,” says James Parton, head of developer marketing at BlueVia. “There is a critical mass of feature phone users within Europe, and in emerging markets, such as Latin America. We are delighted that AlwaysOnMessage will be using BlueVia’s APIs to help solve this problem for millions of potential users.”
Parton: “Feature phone users will now be able to access services that were previously confined to smartphone users.”