By partnering with Virgin Mobile India, GetJar is actually making its second foray into the Indian market. In April of this year, the San Mateo-based company joined forces with Reliance Communications, India's largest CDMA and GSM service provider, to create India's largest mobile app store. GetJar further tightens its grip on the large Indian mobile market with today's announcement.

Younger users make up a large percentage of feature phone and mobile app users, so it makes sense that GetJar would partner with a youth-centric carrier like Virgin. "We look forward to garnering a significant mindshare amongst the youth with this alliance," says GetJar CEO and founder Ilja Laurs.

"Mobile applications and games garner a significant share of time spent on the phone by the youth today," says Virgin Mobile India CEO M. A. Madhusudan. "This alliance with GetJar is an initiative in line with our strategy to engage and enthrall the youth with the latest innovative cutting-edge content on the move."

Last month we mentioned how GetJar's CMO Patrick Mork predicted 50 billion app downloads across all mobile app stores by 2012 - a number twice that of market research predictions for 2015. Whichever estimation is more accurate, the mobile app market is certainly booming, and at 3 million downloads per day, GetJar is a major player flying under many people's radars.

Buzzd is a mobile social network that caters to the latest events going on in your town. Want to know where your friends are right now? How about finding out how many people in your network are at an event you've been debating on attending? Buzzd could be just what you were looking for. The award winning service has the scoop on all the hottest bars, clubs, and social scenes in your town. All of which is conveniently available from your mobile phone browser or via a text message.

Features

With multiple partnerships with Flavorpill, TimeOut, and Zagat, Buzzd provides its user base with over 1.2 million venue listings. With each venue listing users can grab maps, directions, and live reviews before heading out the door. All of this is readily available from the Buzzd WAP site, meaning no download required. Users can also add their favorite venues to their Buzzd profile to receive notifications of upcoming events. If you're a promoter, stay tuned for more news on a future release for Buzzd PRO. This service will allow promoters and artists to gain mass exposure on the Buzzd network with their own custom profiles and more.

Partying With Buzzd, but Only in Metropolitan Areas

The service is available across a plethora of handsets. It also works with just about every American mobile carrier. We recommend checking out the service if you're in a major metropolitan area such as New York, San Francisco, L.A., or Miami. However, like every other mobile social network, Buzzd is only valuable in the big city. We tested the service in Atlanta and Miami and found plenty of places to go and venue reviews to help us decide what was worth our time and money. Once we traveled to less tech oriented lands, it was clear that we'd have to resort to more arcane methods of finding what's buzzing. Don't get us wrong, we think Buzzd is one of the best mobile networks for finding events, but only if you're in a major city. Sorry suburbia.

Virgin Mobile Branded

On the other hand, Virgin Mobile subscribers are in for a real treat. Today, Buzzd announced its latest partnership with mobile carrier. Virgin Mobile will be the first carrier to formally offer Buzzd to its subscribers. Virgin Mobile subscribers can look forward to a ton of exclusives and can access a Virgin Mobile branded version of Buzzd from the Virgin Mobile WAP homepage. This partnership will allow subscribers of the Virgin Mobile network to share their latest happenings with others on the same network via Buzzd. Hopefully by partnering with Virgin Mobile, Buzzd will be able to expand its networks offerings not only to smaller carriers, but smaller cities.