October 25, 2007 10:58 AM PDT

3Guppies' Facebook app sends photos to phone

by Jessica Dolcourt

The only things you need to send a Facebook photo to any cell phone are 3Guppies' (review) Facebook app and a working U.S. or Canadian phone number. The app does a curious thing, pulling up all the photos in your friends' albums as well as your own. Grabbing the photo previews it in a mobile screen frame, though you needn't worry too much about it fitting--3Guppies Mobile automatically scales photos on the destination phone.

You can crop, title, and tag the image and choose to store a copy in the 3Guppies locker for later reference if you have or sign up for an account. Once the photo has landed on the phone, it can be downloaded or sent on its way to sunnier pastures. 3Guppies has hustled behind the scenes, striking compatibility deals with 28 carriers for 1,200 phones in North America.

MySpace users have a slightly different product, an embeddable photo album widget that's then linked to your phone number. Once associated, photo, video, and text auto-uploads from your phone to the widget, essentially creating a miniature multimedia blogging platform. You can also send MySpace photos to any phone.

Like many of the products showcased at the CTIA Wireless Conference, 3Guppies plans to invite ad support, but that's a good three months out and CEO John Dearborn isn't entirely sure how traditional or creative the ads will end up. They may surface as small banners on a WAP site or as a simple link, or could manifest as more interesting sponsored skins surrounding an activity window.