But why is this social network gaining millions of users when Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc are out there already and are very entrenched?

Because they focused on a smaller niche. Their social network is ONLY for mobile phones.

I love this company and its service.

Want to get up to date on the mobile industry and hear all about BluePulse? You know what to do.

Venture Wire has the facts on BluePulse’s announcement. Blognation has other details.

Oh, and BluePulse is yet another best-of-breed companies that came from Australia. What are they putting in the water there?

Oh #2: this video, with CEO Ben Keighran, was filmed in YouTube’s original offices. Is this going to turn out to be a “lucky office?” We’ll see.

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Bluepulse’s new “universal message box” should spare people a great deal of tapping and typing; an address book that can interact with Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN will serve the same purpose.

More all-inclusive goodness involves Bluepulse’s newfound ability to interact with smartphones.  BlackBerry users, in particular, are (in)famous for their dedication, so this could be an important step towards gaining a large user base.  And members of that base could bond tightly with each other thanks to a sort of friend-of-a-friend introduction system.

Bluepulse isn’t yet on top of everything – advertising, which would increase income, is still a ways off.  But since studies have indicated that this is a troublesome arena, it’s not such a bad idea for Bluepulse to just back off and see how things settle out.

By the way – Ben Keighran, Bluepulse’s CEO, indicated that advertising might also become an across-the-board matter.  Kristina Knight writes, “Rather than simple text messages or banner ads, Keighran said he would like to use dynamic profiles to insert ads into widgets.  Once a user uploads a widget, it will be automatically sent to all of the friends and groups in their address book.”

WebProNews chatted with Keighran about the company’s approach to the mobile market. He explained how the platform, developed in university, supports a wide range of phones (though not smartphones, currently).

Across that range, Bluepulse has maintained an agnostic approach to carriers. Viral distribution and word of mouth, not carrier or handset maker partnerships, have pushed Bluepulse to the point where they deliver 100 million pages to users per month.

A key to Bluepulse’s appeal comes from the desire people have to personalize their phones. Communication and personal expression walk together, in Keighran’s opinion, and is important to mobile phone owners.

That influences how Keighran wants their ad-supported model to work. They have been testing ad delivery based on time, location, and profiles of their users. Someone who’s an Avril Lavigne fan may have been offered the opportunity to be her “friend,” and gain access to certain extras through Bluepulse.

As they continue their ad tests – the Avril Lavigne one was part of a test with Sony BMG – Bluepulse will keep reaching out for their target audience with features like group chat and mobile widgets for services like Flickr or Blogger.

In a way, that has been a challenge for Bluepulse. We asked Keighran about expanding in the US, where inferior data networks as compared to Japan and Europe could be an obstacle. He acknowledged that, but expressed confidence based on US users showing up in enough numbers now to put America in the top five of countries using Bluepulse.

First, to substantiate that claim of nonexistence, I’ll cite an M:Metrics study.  Now, to support the theory of expansion, Bluepulse’s press release states, “[M]arket analysis firm Juniper Research forecast mobile operator revenues from user-generated content will increase tenfold over the next five years, rising from $576 million in 2007 to $5.74 billion by 2012.”

The release then continues, “According to Juniper, social networking services will account for 50 percent of that total, with the number of active mobile social network subscribers accelerating from 14 million in 2007 to 600 million in 2012.”

Do you buy that forecast?  What about the concept of “luck”?  Bluepulse, which was created in Australia, just moved into YouTube’s old San Mateo offices; they have to be as good a place as any for a young company trying to corner a market.

On to the matter of what Bluepulse is all about, then; the subject is thoroughly (and enthusiastically) addressed by Eric Ver Ploeg, a managing director at VantagePoint Venture Partners.  “Bluepulse has undoubtedly developed one of the most compelling social networking platforms for mobile,” he stated.  “Because the app has been built for the handset from the ground up, it offers a mobile-specific social networking experience, rather than a pared down Web experience on a phone.”

Hat tip to Red Herring’s Ken Schachter.