VRINGO MERGES SOCIAL NETWORKING AND ‘VISUAL CALLER ID’ WITH NEW FACEBOOK APPLICATION

VringoTM, the pioneer in visual ringtone sharing, has announced a new Facebook® application that lets Vringo users import their Facebook friends’ profile photos to their mobile phones, automatically matching them to friends’ phone numbers. When Facebook friends call one another, their friend’s photos will appear on their phone screens as a type of visual caller ID.
 
“Vringo and Facebook are focused on sharing interesting content and experiences over digital media,” said Vringo General Manager and Senior VP–Content & Community Andrew Perlman. “By enabling Vringo users to connect Facebook friends with their mobile contact information, the Vringo experience becomes even more personalized and focused on users’ communities or social maps.”
 
The Vringo application enables Facebook users to update the photos on their devices through Facebook when friends change their profile pictures. Facebook users who add the application can also invite friends to become Vringo users.
 
The application initially will be offered free on a global basis. Vringo for Facebook is available for BlackBerry® smartphones from Research In Motion (RIM) and devices operating on the Windows Mobile platform. The application will also be available for additional mobile devices in the near future.
 
The application can be downloaded from Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/vringofb/. At the site, a Vringo user must provide his or her mobile number to download the application directly onto their mobile device.
 
Vringo’s Facebook application is an offshoot of the company’s flagship video ringtone service in which subscribers can also use their buddy lists to deliver rich media clips—“Vringos”—announcing the caller to the person being called, or to identify an incoming caller. With this service, users select their personal Vringo clips (such as customized avatars, cartoons and slide shows, as well as TV, music or video clips) through their mobile handsets or online. This (non-Facebook) version of Vringo can be downloaded at www.vringo.com.
 
Users can choose licensed content from providers such as Discovery Channel, Universal Music Group, Turner Broadcasting System and Agence France Presse; content they create themselves; or content imported from almost anywhere on the Web. Vringos can be shared with any subscriber in the Vringo community with a compatible wireless phone.
 
For further details about Vringo, to preview video ringtones or to see a list of supported handsets, please visit www.vringo.com.
 
A video clip demonstrating the Vringo Facebook application can be viewed here: http://comunicano.typepad.com/bam/2008/03/vringos-new-fac.html.
 
The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.

About Vringo

Vringo is making mobile Personalization 2.0 a reality by enabling users to experience rich media ringtones on a wide variety of mobile devices and for the first time to share that media with others within a community. Vringo is backed by Warburg Pincus and by private investors. More information can be found at www.vringo.com.