AT&T has Mobile Social Platforms…but it’ll Cost You

If you are one of the many who haven't bought an iPhone, and don't plan on buying an iPhone even with the new low iPhone 3G price, but still subscribe to AT&T, I might never understand you.  However, my misgivings about your cellular provider aside, your peculiar choices shouldn't mean you can't play social with all the happy iPhone owners.

AT&T just debuted the 6.0 version of its mobile social platform JuiceCaster earlier this week.  With JuiceCaster, cell phone users can upload videos and pictures to the JuiceCaster network, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace.  Additionally, JuiceCaster allows the socialholics in all of us the pleasures of updating the statuses of Facebook and Twitter, as well as do a little mobile stalking of our friends' profiles, too.  

JuiceCaster's latest update also includes support for popular sites like PhotoBucket, Blogger, LiveJournal, and TypePad.  Pretty nifty for those folks who don't have the smartest of phones.  After looking over JuiceCaster, I was left wondering exactly why users can update the statuses of Facebook and Twitter but not MySpace.   Maybe that is too much to ask, considering the dazzling lengths AT&T has gone to in the interests of delivering buyers a unique mobile experience.

And, just in case you are wondering, you do need to buy the platform.  It isn't just a one-time fee.  Using JuiceCaster will cost you $2.99 a month - now that sounds like a tune AT&T and other providers are used to making customers sing.  For $2.99 a month, I want my MySpace updates, by golly.  I'm not the only one who isn't a fan of AT&T's nickel and diming, either. 

The cell phone provider would have to justify the costs somehow; obviously building and providing a user community, free of expense, is too expensive these days, eh?  Unless the platform operates strickly on SMS standard rates (highly doubtful), don't forget that you are also shelling out for your data plan to boot. 

 Me, I'm still waiting for the right well-intentioned developer to come along and link all my favorite social platforms into one meta-platform on my cell phone, but out of its good heart.  Otherwise, I'm content to resort to more conventional, computer-based or sms-based means of staying socially connected.  AT&T not being at the top of my list of preferred providers, I'll keep saying thanks, but no thanks, to the wonderful list of services AT&T can provide at a cost.  Perhaps someday my hatred for the provider will lose out to my lust for the iPhone…but not today, AT&T. Not today.