“We believe that mobile will soon become the most popular way of accessing social networking sites, giving real time access to tweets and status updates wherever you are,” said Antony Douglas, Head of Content at O2. “The agreements we now have in place with Twitter and the other key sites brings this a step closer, making it quick and easy for O2 customers to access their favourite social networks straight from their mobile.”

The agreement with O2 in the UK will form a framework for future agreements between Twitter and Telefónica operations globally.

The SMS updates posted on Twitter will be free of charge for the first few weeks from launch – then they will be part of customers’ bundles. After the free period regular charges will apply to customers without bundles but all text message updates sent from Twitter will remain free of charge.

“Mobile texting extends the power of Twitter’s real-time network in a simple but significant way,” says Kevin Thau Director of Mobile Business Development at Twitter. “Twitter is the messaging network you didn’t know you needed until you experience it over SMS.”

[via unwiredview]

Twitter is a communication network that enables users to send and receive text based posts of up to 140 characters (known as “tweets”). Updates are displayed on a users profile page at Twitter.com and delivered in real time to those who’ve signed up for them. Twitter updates can also be received through integration with other social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin (using Twhirl software) or via SMS, RSS or Twittermobile.

Business users will, for example, be able to edit documents and update spreadsheets using applications such as Open Office or keep up-to-date with their emails. Consumers will be able to enjoy simple one-click access to chat or Twitter services or any of their favourite social networks.

“uCAN transforms a wireless broadband USB modem into a virtual PC capable of supporting an almost infinite range of useful, and for the operators revenue-generating, applications and services. This is really the Internet in your pocket,” said Jan Callewaert, CEO of Option. “uCAN also marks a new chapter in Option’s evolution – opening up new software licensing revenues to complement our existing mobile broadband hardware business.”

Shipments of uCAN-enabled iCON USB devices are scheduled for the first half of 2009. Over time, the technology is likely to be offered across Option’s range of iCON USB modems as media players, instant messaging and web 2.0 applications open up consumer market segments.

Option is demonstrating uCAN in Hall 1, stand 1C 43 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (February 16-19).

I already downloaded and installed it in my BlackBerry Curve 8310, and I think the new beta release is useful. Despite it has no improvements from user interface side, however the latest tweaks and modifications made me more convenient to handle my Twitter activity.

In previous versions of TwitterBerry, user cannot follow people, send and read Direct Messages. Too bad, if I want to check or send my DMs, I should get my PC! Fortunately, TwitterBerry developer Jason Schroeder kindly added these new features.

New in this version of TwitterBerry:

• Polling support, accessible from the Options menu
• Cache more tweets. Caching up to 200 of the latest tweets in your friends timeline, replies timeline, and direct messages.
• Reload timelines from the screen, without opening and closing
• Improved network requests, only loading new tweets since last request.
• Multiple bug fixes.

It’s also mentioned that this new version has TwitPic support. “Look for the ‘Send to TwitPic’ menu in the Media application when viewing images,” Orangatame wrote in its website. Unfortunately I can’t find any such menu option in my BlackBerry Media app. Where is it gone?

Ah yes, beyond my expectation, user even can view Friend List directly from TwitterBerry! Good job, Jason!

You can pick up the latest beta at: http://orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry/beta/ and read Al Sacco review while downloading and installing the new app.

[via BerryReview]

P.S. Btw, just in case you want to know or follow me, here is my Twitter account: http://twitter.com/budip

CellSpin lets users move beyond Twitter’s 140-character limit and take their expression to a new level. Pownce users can share whole range of multimedia experiences with their friends on-the-go using CellSpin.

According to Bobby Gurvinder Singh, CEO and co-founder of CellSpin, “We’re really excited that you can now tweet in your own voice and not be limited to text only. You can also share picture tweets and video tweets of your life as you live it, from anywhere in the world on both Pownce and Twitter. This is the next obvious step in the micro-blogging revolution.”