Xumii, a mobile social networking aggregator, today released a free application for the Apple iPhone. Xumii combines iPhone contacts with friends from Facebook, MySpace, imeem, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, MSN and Flickr.
With Xumii, users can see everyone's status in one place and chat and share photos with friends across and between different networks. They can also update their own status and have it broadcast across all of their communities at once.
"Until now, there was no easy way to stay connected with friends scattered across different social and IM networks from a mobile phone. You had to launch multiple applications one at a time or go to multiple mobile Web sites," said Jennifer Zanich, CEO of Xumii. "We wanted to make it really easy to keep up with your online social life when you're out and about."
Xumii is one of many social networking aggregators striving to simplify communication between services like MySpace and Facebook. As it stands, most social networking sites operate behind a walled garden and do not allow cross-service communication.
When asked if these services will be opening up their networks, Warren Faleiro, vice president of Messaging and Mobile Media for VeriSign, said it will happen. "Yes, they will have to open up their walls… maybe a year or so," he said.
For now, users will have to stick with aggregation platforms and applications like Xumii to talk across the borders currently in place between social networking communities.