Samsung to Launch Chat Service

Samsung is launching ChatON, a cross-platform mobile chat service, in the coming weeks, hoping to lure more customers to their handsets and challenging the growing competition in mobile messenging services.

ChatON is expected to support a variety of mobile operating systems, including Samsung's own Bada mobile operating system, Android, feature phones and even competitors' platforms, including iOS and BlackBerry.

Reportedly, the service, which also supports sharing media like photos, videos, voice messages and contacts, will allow users to have private one-to-one conversations or participate in group chats.

Smartphone users will also have the ability to comment on each other's profiles, send multimedia messages that combine text and audio, and view their own "Interaction Rank," which displays how active they are on the ChatOn network. The service is expected to let feature phone users text, send images, use calendar appointments and contact sharing.

Samsung's announcement comes at time when people are increasingly turning away from traditional and more costly text messaging to mobile device apps to communicate and share with friends and family. Last week, TheNextWeb reported the simple text message, or SMS, may become a thing of the past in three to five years, a likely casualty of the other instant messaging services now available on smartphones and tablets.

Research in Motion's BlackBerry messenger smartphone app, for instance, often cited as the leading communications method in the recent London riots, is one example of this movement toward alternative messaging services.

BBM provides a free alternative to text messaging for BlackBerry users and has demonstrated an ability to operate during times of heavy communication traffic, such as in the wake of Hurricane Irene. The resulting activity jammed traditional wireless carriers' lines and disrupted most mobile communication, but not BBM.

Apple's new iMessage client is also expected to launch this fall, providing instant iOS-to-iOS texting for all iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and is set to run over 3G and Wi-Fi rather than via SMS text.

IMessage will allow iOS users to send texts, photos, video and contact information all in one messaging window, and even have group messaging like in a private chat room.

Also, earlier this month, Facebook launched a standalone app called Facebook Messenger, which lets users to exchange instant messages, images and location information by using contact numbers stored on smartphones, regardless of whether they are friends on the site.

Facebook's offering may be in response to rival social network Google+ and its highly praised Hangout and Huddle features, which allow group videos and instant chat with friends, illustrating how both standalone apps and emerging social networks are exploring new ways for their customers to communicate.

Samsung's entry into an increasingly crowded field may have a strong chance of finding an audience, especially with its cross-platform capabilities, but it may have initial difficulties building a base outside its own device users. While Samsung phone consumers may take to the service since they already own the company's handsets, reaching out to other phone makers' users may prove more difficult.

Samsung's ChatON will reportedly go live next month in over 120 countries and in 62 languages.