Mobile social network itsmy.com launched a social phone book for Web-enabled phones.

Mobile Internet users can now create individual, interactive social phone books directly from their handsets. The new social phone book is accessible directly through any mobile browser via http://m.itsmy.com, requiring no application downloads.

"The strategy here is clearly to bring people to the mobile Internet," said Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO of Gofresh.com, Munich, Germany. "Today, from all the phone books out there, there are none for the mobile Internet circuit.

"In addition, we allow users to share all their information with people who are not involved yet in the mobile Internet," he said. "This will keep customers closer, and will make mobile action and activity far higher because you use your phone book every day, or every hour."

The mobile Web phone book includes such features as single contacts with full profile details like phone numbers, pictures, and links to mobile sites. The service also offers social features including direct access to community actions, messaging, sharing and voting.

The mobile site is ad-supported by such advertisers as Millenial Media, making it free for users.

In addition, consumers can send their own information to friends by following the "invite friends" link on the mobile site. Friends will receive the information in an SMS message that will contain a link to the site, allowing them to sign up for the service.

The company predicts that video sharing and location-sensitive technology, as well as direct access to personal mobile TV channels, will be available by the third quarter of this year.

Since this new approach to mobile Web access, visits to specific sites and log-ins to itsmy.com has increased by an estimated 24 percent in the US. Pictue and video uploads increased as well by 12 percent.

Itsmy.com, a subsidiary of Gofresh, is an off-deck independent mobile community with nearly 2 million mobile users and an estimated 4.5 million mobile home and content pages.

"The purpose of the service is mainly for consumers educate and inform their friends of that presence that they have in the mobile Internet." Mr. Saybl said. "It is far too hard to explain to someone the process of accessing the browser and the various steps, so here users simply send the contact link, then their friends just click on the page.

"That is the biggest challenge to address, and we see people loving the service because they don't have to talk about and explain it," he said.