In wrapping up the coverage from the launch event, we thought we‘d bring you some of the thinking and reasoning passed along to us as to why the development of the phone’s series by Hutchinson began. These were outlaid to us on the day by 3′s CEO Kevin Russell and the INQ’s CEO Frank Meehan.

These facts came along to us in the form of stats around the rise of data services over the 3 network, charted as an example from Nov 2007 until last month.

To be honest, we were a tad surprised over the figures knowing their frontend portal presented to their customers. Also we recalled some distant knowledge of 3 services being heavily firewalled to a severe degree, where not a great deal of access to outside websites was allowed.

So when we saw the number of users mentioned which started at 250,000 from last year and hitting the high of 950,000 of late, it took us back a bit. After digesting all and sundry plus getting hold of a three SIM card, all of these are actually supported and all works rather well too. It looks like their portal doesn’t scream and shout about it too much.

Just to back up their slide and doubly endorsing how 3 is used in today’s world of social networking, they went on to throw some more numbers at us.

On 3 handsets just over the October period, 2 million searches were performed, 3.5million emails were received by users on the network, 20 million minutes of Skype calls were made, 36 million chats were made on Skype, 200 million instant messages took place, 44 million pages on Facebook were viewed where there were only half that number six months ago. And a partridge in a pear tree.

Whilst you’re digesting all of that, it makes sense that a phone like the INQ should have come along right now. Even more so when you take into account news has reached us this week that mobile Facebook users have tripled this year, to the mighty sum of 15 million and counting.

For the last four hours I have been trying to get the G1′s IM client to add another account. I’m using my main Mobile Industry Review account on the device — but I have a load of other accounts that I’d like to use — MSN, Yahoo and so on — but I can’t for the life of me work out how to add them.

It appears to be possible judging by the screenshot of the video posted by the Google Android IM/Gtalk team.

I can’t find a How-To or a manual for this… has anyone figured it out?

Big time.

They’ve just been acquired by The Big N.

Congratulations to all.

This is a move that is sure to get tongues wagging some more — Nokia, becoming an internet company? Oh aye. There are a heck of a lot of benefits to Nokia acquiring OZ, not least the existing carrier partnerships:

Leading companies that are Powered by OZâ„¢ include: 3 Scandinavia, Alltel, AOL®, Bell Mobility, Boost Mobile, AT&T, Dobson, ICQ, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Pantech & Curitel, Rogers Wireless, Samsung, SonyEricsson, Sprint, TCL & Alcatel Mobile Phones, Telefónica Móviles España, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, Telus Mobility, T-Mobile USA®, Verizon Wireless, Virgin Mobile USA and Yahoo!®.

A chap close to the deal tells me that we’ll shortly see an IM client of sorts integrated on to Nokia phones out of the box. I really wonder at that. I’m not too sure how many operators will react to that, even in today’s changed environment.

The acquisition is subject to ‘customary closing conditions’ — and should be complete in Q1 this year. At which point, OZ will become a unit of Nokia’s Services & Software division. Nice.

AIM Express sports tabbed IM conversations and text message mode – users can SMS anyone on their buddy list – and the apps works with all the major browsers, including IE, Firefox and Safari (what no Opera?)

AIM has had a spit and polish for Windows Mobile phones, and is now available for version 5 and 6 of the OS. While it’s not earthshattering, it’s good to see AOL looking after the service and tarting it up once in a while – and a Flash version makes a lot of sense for anyone who fancies an IM convo on their work phone without all the hassle of convincing the IT department to let them put software on the device.

Apparently, the mobile messaging stars will be the sort of services we use on our PCs – mobile email, mobile IM – as operators start giving away more cheap, all-you-can-eat data pricing and make email services easier to use.

The report also notes that the way device form factors are changing will affect mobile messaging take-up. Too right – the way the BlackBerry (not to mention its copycats) is starting to get comfortable in the consumer space just proves how popular the combination of email-friendly keyboard and a big screen is for even the average user at the moment.

It never ceases to amaze me. There’s a certain amount of overhead that goes into a live audio call when you’re interacting real time. You can avoid that overhead to get the message through or get a response easily with instant messaging. I use it all across the day, wherever I am.

The brilliant thing with IM is that if I’m busy, momentarily or continually, then, well, you won’t get a response — until I’m not.

I sometimes need quick responses when I’m working on a post. If I can find the PR or the relevant person on IM, I’ll ask the question and generally wait for a response. But email? It’s not real-time enough…!

Add me and say hi: ewanmacleod@gmail.com, ewanmacleod@hotmail.com, ewanjmacleod@yahoo.co.uk, ewanjmacleod on Skype

While Yahoo is somewhat optimistically portraying this as a sign that the average Joe can’t be bear to be parted from mobile IM and the mobile web, it actually looks like people are still after using the old favourites: 38 percent of those surveyed want in-flight SMS and 28 percent wouldn’t mind mid-air mobile email.

The survey also says that the ability to play games while in flight would be a hit with 29 percent of consumers, which sort of suggests that consumers may not even want connectivity, just the ability to be able to turn on their phone and use the features, especially after a recent flight where I was told that I couldn’t look at my phone at all, flight mode or no flight mode. If mobile connectivity on planes means I can look at the clock, calendar, calculator, whatever, on my phone whether I use the network or not, I’m all for it.

Fring promises all the usual call and chat functionality you’d expect from VoIP, and it integrates with a whole host of other services, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! & AIM, with a single contacts list.

I can’t imagine the likes of Apple being happy about this – the iPhone needs to please its ‘carrier partners’, and most operators haven’t been exactly ready to embrace VoIP just yet. Others have suggested that Apple might be working on its own VoIP app, and therefore unlikely to embrace the budding competition. Either way, Apple has shown when it released updates that bricked jailbroken iPhones, it’s not shy of taking drastic action when iPhone users are doing things with the device it doesn’t like – and that doesn’t bode well for VoIP.