Frengo Launches Platform for Mobile Social Play

A team of mobility and Internet veterans recently announced the launch of a new social play network, Frengo. Offering its members a suite of innovative games and messaging services that add a layer of mobility to social networks, Frengo enables compelling social interactions that enhance web-based social activities and encourage recurrent play over any mobile phone.

Frengo offers its members games played via SMS or MMS messaging services. Revolving around competitive or fun pursuits such as sports, celebrities and pop culture, Frengo's games let people easily connect and interact with groups of friends. Frengo works on every major US mobile network including AT&T (Cingular), Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile and Boost Mobile.

Targeting young adults, Frengo is partnering with mobile operators such as Boost Mobile which understand the services needed to attract and serve this important demographic. In partnership with Boost Mobile, Frengo launched a text alert-based game in which players predict winners in upcoming games during the NCAA college basketball tournament.

Early usage patterns for Frengo's early trial users show that users come back frequently to play one or more games, with power users playing multiple games throughout the day.

Frengo founders noted the popularity of social networking and the rise of text based communications as the impetus for the company. With their history in mobile services and entertainment, they conceived a way to apply mobility to web-based social interactions and then combined this with the simplicity and mass adoption of SMS. Thus, the concept of "friends on the go" became Frengo. Frengo has also opened its game-building toolkit for its members to create user-generated games and content for an additional fun and compelling way for one person to interact simultaneously with many, even thousands of people.