14 DAY TRIAL // A new experimental service has been rolled out by Nokia Beta Labs. Nokia Mobile Communities is the company’s latest attempt to provide social networking features to mobile phone users without access to the Internet.
Nokia Mobile Communities provides a way for users to connect with other people without requiring a Web connection or a desktop computer. All the communications are made entirely via SMS, using either a Java client for S40 phones or the native SMS interface for non-Nokia phones.
The service enables users to communicate with others by creating private and public communities. Private communities, called Conversations, help users connect with friends, family and coworkers, while public communities, called Streams, allow them to follow people and topics that are important to them.
The Conversations feature resembles instant messaging and permits one to communicate simultaneously with up to ten people by sending a single message. It is recommended for having short conversations, such as planning a night out or simply checking how friends are doing.
The Streams feature functions in a way similar to Twitter, enabling users to broadcast messages to followers who have subscribed to their topic, or read messages from all those they have subscribed to. This way, users can create conversation channels for different topics - such as local news and career tips, or persons, like fans of various bands.
During the beta trial, Nokia Mobile Communities is only available to people in India, where many users do not have Internet access, nor smartphones. They can use the service by installing a program on their mobile phones or by sending a simple SMS with commands to a local number.
The mobile application is optimized for S40 phones with 240x320 screen resolution, although it should work on all Nokia devices that support Java. It can be downloaded for free here.