The hype around the convergence of social networking and mobile services is set to crank up a notch. Nokia just announced that it will launch a Facebook widget that will enable users of its N97 and N97 mini models to publish their location and status updates direct from their home screen, while also seeing updates from friends. This makes a lot of sense and is a good illustration of the potential of widgets to make mobile multimedia services more compelling and simple to use.

Social networking has the potential to make the mobile Internet as widely used as SMS, but only if it is affordable. Nokia’s so-called “lifecasting” service will initially only be available on two relatively expensive smart phones. Nokia estimates the N97 mini, the cheaper of the two, will sell at retail for 450 euros before taxes and subsidies, when it begins shipping in October. Teenagers and twentysomethings, the most active users of social networks, might balk at that price tag, plus the cost of a flat-rate data plan. Many will be on prepaid tariffs today.

To really get this market moving, the mobile ecosystem needs to get easy-to-use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter widgets on to the home screens of inexpensive feature phones. Moreover, operators need to experiment more around dedicated and low-cost prepaid data tariff plans, purely for use with social networks and subsidised by advertising. Is now the time to make that push or should the industry focus on high-end users first?