Provoked by the uptake of the Twitter micro-blogging service, INQ Mobile plans to introduce a handset that will be especially designed for the service in time for the Christmas sales rush.
The handset maker said it has sold 700,000 phones since it launched its first model, the Skypephone, with 3UK in 2007, and is looking for the new $140 Twitter phone to achieve a similar success.
The Hutchison-owned company said it was making the mobile internet experience easier and cheaper by developing handsets optimized for specific applications.
“This can really help open up and drive Twitter use on mobile when usage becomes part of your data package like on the PC,” CEO Frank Meehan said.
However, the INQ Twitter phone plans to use internet connections for sending the 140-character messages, called Tweets, not the text messages used by Twitter's own service.
According to 3UK - which has heavily promoted the INQ1 Facebook handset - traffic on the INQ1 was typically three to four times higher than on other 3UK phones, with 65% using Facebook regularly.
But the phone is three to four times cheaper than more famous web traffic generators like the iPhone.
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June 05, 2009
By Paul Rasmussen, FierceWireless:Europe