Application pod integration with automated mobile phone billing and distribution platform

Abstract

A platform for supporting a network-enabled application is configured to render the network enabled application for a user, via a user interface associated with the user, in accordance with various APIs included in the platform and used by a program developer to develop the network-enabled application. The rendering can included recognizing that the user interface is a mobile user interface and rendering the network-enabled application in a manner appropriate and/or optimal for the mobile user interface.

1 . A social networking site for supporting a network-enabled application, comprising:
 a plurality of communication channels to a respective plurality of wireless network carriers, each of the wireless network carriers having a plurality of users with cell phone service with the respective wireless network carrier;   at least one processor;   at least one interface having access to the internet;   at least one Application Programming Interface (API); and   at least one computer readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for integrating the network-enabled application with the social networking site, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by the one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform:
 a web page establishment step of establishing, on the social networking site, a user profile web page associated with each of the plurality of users; 
 a application access step of making a plurality of network-enabled applications available, in the social networking site, to the plurality of users via an area on the social networking site and allowing each of the plurality of users the ability to place one of the plurality of network-enabled application on their web page and to access or use the network-enabled application on the web-page; 
 a selection receipt step of receiving, in the social networking site, a selection indication from one of the plurality of users selecting a network-enabled application, the selection indication including an application identifier and network location information corresponding to the location of the network-enabled application on a third party application server; 
 a recognizing step of recognizing, in the social networking site, the application identifier and the network location information and sending a request to the third party application server associated with the application identifier and the network location information; 
 a receiving step of receiving, in the social networking site, code instructions associated with the selected network-enabled application from the third party application server in response to the request; 
 a rendering step of rendering, in the social networking site, the selected network-enabled application in accordance with the code instructions and the API; 
 a billing event detection step of detecting, in the social networking site, a billing event generated by the network-enabled application, the billing event containing an identification code corresponding to the user; and 
 a billing message step of sending, in the case that the billing event is determined to be valid in the billing validation step, a billing message from the social networking site to an external billing mechanism, the billing message containing a billing amount which the external billing mechanism bills to the user as part of a bill for the user's cell phone service.