Truphone Extends Reach With IM, Twitter & Skype Integration

Truphone issued a couple of press releases today. The first release announces full interoperability of IM with MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and GoogleTalk in its iPod Touch and iPhone applications.  They have also integrated Twitter into the TruFriends view of the Truphone application.

In the case of GoogleTalk users can also make and receive voice calls using the Truphone application. Similar voice capability is in the work for users of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

In a second release Truphone have also announced integration with Skype for both IM and voice calling, also on the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone. In all cases the application leverages the available network connection whether wifi or cellular.

This is interesting on a bunch of different levels. Users of multiple services will find the consolidation of all this into one application extremely convenient. Making voice calls over the data path from a wireless device opens up the potential for not only cost savings but possibly better-than-PSTN call quality given the correct conditions.

It also means that they have worked out the issues of namespace and gateways allowing a single mobile VoIP client to deal with PSTN calls, SIP URIs and Skype IDs.

Truphone are doing some very interesting things. I certainly hope that the find a path to launching some of it on Blackberry as well.

All this is on display this week in San Francisco at MacWorld. Truphone is in booth #3228.