Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless L.L.C. customers will have access to e-mail and instant messaging on their handsets, thanks to two new agreements.
Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, inked a deal that provides MSN Mobile services to its customers with Get It Now-enabled phones. The applications allow users to send e-mails, instant messages and emoticons between wireless devices or to several devices at once. An emoticon is a way of using keyboard letters and symbols as shorthand-such as 🙂 to convey a smile or IMHO as an abbreviation for “in my humble opinion.”
Cingular has teamed with Yahoo! to bring a host of services to its customers. In addition to instant messaging and e-mail, new services for users include mapping, games, news and weather information via Cingular’s Media Net service. And users can set personal preferences to automatically receive specific information, such as stock prices or local weather.
Both applications can be downloaded from appropriate handsets.