Vodafone is trying to join the party currently being dominated by Apple, Google and Nokia. They have launched a suite of net services for mobiles and PCs, reports BBC News Online.

The service is called Vodafone 360 and it unites customer’s contacts with information from social networking sites such as Facebook. The service replaces Vodafone Live!

Vodafone 360 will be initially launched in eight countries in Europe and has been designed to work best with two new handsets from Samsung. A further four handsets from Nokia will be preloaded with the service.

An analyst said Vodafone’s service was similar to other products from Apple and Palm which also build social networking into the handset.

The service will be able to be used on other networks meaning that if a Vodafone customer moved to another provider they could still use Vodafone 360. Users of the service will also be able to access over 1,000 applications. In comparison the Apple iPhone offers over 65,000 applications.

Source and further details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8272841.stm