Europe UK : Mobile media company 3 announced the launch of neXt (http://next.three.com and http://3next.mobi), the newest development in the X-Series mobile internet evolution. neXt is a website designed to act as a community-built guide to mobile resources on the Internet. The website is a free service aimed at X-Series and other mobile internet users from any country or network to enable them to find and use mobile applications and mobile optimised websites. 

In November last year, the X-Series from 3 was announced as the beginning of the internet via the mobile as it was meant to be.  3 neXt has been developed to further deliver on the vision of bringing the full power of the internet to mobile handsets by helping customers discover innovative and useful mobile internet applications and made-for-mobile websites.

The 3 neXt website is a gateway to existing independently developed applications for mobile internet capable devices. The website catalogues these, describes and reviews their functionality and provides links for download and further investigation. The website also identifies mobile optimised websites which provide a mobile alternative to browsing PC based websites. The site also introduces exciting social features such as the ability to rank applications according to how useful people find them as well as the option to suggest applications that users think should be promoted through the neXt website.  New applications and services will be added to the site regularly by the neXt team.

The services and applications featured on neXt represent some of the most exciting new tools developed for the mobile internet.  At launch the website will feature products from some of the hottest Internet and mobile start-ups in the world, including social networking applications from Jaiku, mapping services from Mapsolute, a mobile-optimised version of Wikipedia from SevenVal and a photo-upload and handset backup service from Shozu. These are not controlled or sponsored by 3 but have been through a review of compatibility and performance.  These mobile applications typically rely on a higher than usual amount of Internet use, which compliments the generous X-Series data packages.

John Penberthy-Smith, Marketing Director, 3, said: “neXt is about making more of the things you can do on the internet available via your mobile handset – not just accessing websites but getting to some of the new applications that are changing the face of the Internet.  The first stage of X-Series that we launched last year brought some of the biggest names on the web to mobile handsets.  neXt is about helping customers to explore a wider range of new and innovative applications.”