Litescape launched a cross network and cross device platform that aims to take advantage of "deep presence" on mobile phones, allowing users, developers and companies alike to take advantage of having the status, availability and location of contacts in an address book.
Litescape launched both the platform and an application called 3deep and the company is touting the platform as a way for operators, service providers, social networks and developers to take advantage of users' deep presence and launch their own applications via a single API. To show off the potential of the platform, Litescape is launching the application for smartphones as well.
The application, which can be downloaded from Apple's App Store, the Android Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, Microsoft Skymarket and via Handango, allows users to see whether or not someone is on the phone, what their availability is like based on their calendar appointments and their location. The application also features "Tell Me When," which sets up a time to contact someone if they are meeting specific criteria in their status, availability and location settings. The application can automatically pull information from calendar, social networking sites and location-based services.
Users can see this information for up to five contacts for free. If they want the application to apply to all of their contacts, they have to pay for a subscription, which is $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. A user's contacts must have the application for their information to be displayed. Users can decide to manually update information as well as how to share it; they can decide how much they want to share with certain contacts, or even when, such as only on the weekend.
Litescape CEO Gary Griffiths said the application would "connect a lot of dots" for enterprise customers, but he said the application would also appeal to general consumers as well. "We think it's going to be viral because people will choose who they want to see," he said.
Griffiths said the real value of 3deep is in the platform. "We're doing the application because platforms are hard to sell and hard to visualize," he said. He said carriers may adapt the platform for applications specific to their networks. He also said that the company would use a traditional revenue-sharing business model with developers.
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