You've heard of Samsung's Social Hub, Motorola's Motoblur, Alltel's MyCircle and T-Mobile USA's MyFaves, as well as dozens upon dozens of startups that offer various management solutions for handsets. Now Seven Networks says it's come up with something unique, and it wants wireless carriers to pay attention.

Ping is Seven's new app for Android that lets carriers deploy a chat service integrated with email, voice calls, Facebook, SMS, IM and more. Michael Luna, Seven's chief technical officer, says today's mobile phone users can easily use six or more messaging apps on their mobile devices. It's all getting more complicated, and Ping gives users more control over their conversations and messaging.

What makes Ping unique is it's a shift from service-based messaging to contact-based messaging, the company says. It's "glance-able," from the most relevant to least relevant contact, so users can keep track of say, one friend in particular if you happen talk with her a lot. If you want to see all the email from Kara, press a button, and they all show up. "This is about your community of people you talk to the most," Luna says.

Device makers have their versions, like Samsung's Social Hub or Motorola's Motoblur, and operators have offered things like MyFave, MyCircle and Voda360, but Ping is designed to "flatten" communities, so it's not about the service provider or the OEM, but about the user, say Seven executives.

The company plans on distributing the software through carriers, which can embed it on upcoming devices or offer it as an over-the-air service on existing ones. Seven also plans to offer a free version on the Android market in June to build momentum around Ping.

Seven says the main innovation of Ping's user interface is a contact carousel that automatically organizes messages by contact and allows users to view, read and send messages in one place – they no longer have to check Facebook, email, IM, SMS, MMS and voicemail individually to see who's trying to reach them.

At launch, Ping will support Seven-powered chat, email and IM apps, including access to Facebook Chat, Gmail and Gtalk; SMS; phone and voice mail and all mail providers that are relevant for the carrier (including Yahoo!, Windows Live and carrier-branded email). Carriers also can configure the hot button carousel with their own push-content services or with real-time pushed content from news, weather, auction or other sites.