Facebook’s Mobile Plan: Carrier Billing, Analytics For Apps Via Bango Deal?

Last week, we highlighted how Facebook is already using mobile devices for commercial services—enabling people to buy Facebook Credits and charge them directly to their mobile bills. Now, it’s increasingly looking like that may just be the beginning: today, UK-based mobile billing and analytics specialist Bango (AIM: BGO) announced that it had signed a deal to provide unspecified services to the social network.

This is a significant deal for Facebook on two separate fronts:

—It ties Facebook up with one of the bigger companies in the area of mobile billing: Bango is the payments provider for RIM’s App World, which yesterday once again laid claim to being the second-most profitable app storefront after Apple’s—largely because of the fact that it has a strong business in paid apps and that those apps are billed directly to users’ mobile bills in 34 countries. RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) yesterday claimed that 13 percent of its App World developers earn in excess of $100,000, which is massive considering how many developers earn next to nothing.

In December last year, Bango also secured a deal with Amazon.

Like the Facebook announcement that deal provided no detail about what it was that Bango would do for the company—although that, too, could be an opportunity for Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) to build carrier billing into its mobile apps. A spokesperson contacted today declined to comment on the details of either the Amazon or Facebook deals, although she did confirm that Amazon was an active customer.

The use of carrier billing also begs another question: for what? That could point to Facebook offering richer mobile services on its web platform.

Read the full story at Paidcontent.co.uk

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Posted by Ingrid Lunden on Feb 12 2012. Filed under Digital, featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.