Sprint Nextel appears to be raising the bar on mobile chatting. The company today announced the availability of three new ways to chat or keep in touch with friends anywhere: Jumbuck Island, The Lounges and Webdate Mobile.
Jumbuck Island, from Jumbuck Entertainmnet, is a 3D wireless chat service exclusive to Sprint for the first three months. Jumbuck Island brings elements from PC games and Internet chatrooms into one service. Users choose different avatars to represent themselves. Once on the island, users can wander around the different areas, including beaches and cruise ships, and send messages or chat with other users in private one-on-ones. Jumbuck Island is available for $3.99 per month.
The Lounges is the first segmented mobile community in North America, exclusive to Sprint for the first year, according to the carrier. Created by AirG, The Lounges lets Sprint users connect with other mobile users in any of three chat lounges - Sports, Latino and Friends - from mobile phones. The Lounges are free for the first month and $3.99 for additional months.
Webdate Mobile, enabled by Trilibis, is the world's largest mobile dating service. It gives users anytime, anywhere access to an online dating community, including complete personals with photos, profile searches and browsing and anonymous messaging to other Webdate members. Webdate Mobile is available for $4.99 per month.
"As mobile chat services become more and more popular, customers are asking for more ways to use the services to stay connected and meet new people while on the go," said John Styers, Sprint's director of data services for messaging and imaging, via a press release. "These three new services from Jumbuck, AirG and Trilibis give Sprint customers unique ways to reach others locally or around the world, whether it's to find people with common interests or find a date
