Hoiio working on its own version of Facebook Connect

Chances are, if you own a smartphone, you would know Facebook Connect. You may not know its name, but you’ve definitely used it. It’s essentially a service that allows you to bring your Facebook identity into other apps or websites.

For example, if you download Scramble with Friends, you can play the game using your Facebook identity, and even find out which of your Facebook friends are also playing the game so that you can compete with them.

Well, it turns out Singapore-based Hoiio is working on a similar idea for its suite of mobile apps, except that it’s called Hoiio Connect, revealed co-founder Junda Ong.

But while Facebook is motivated by the desire to get Internet users perpetually connected to its social network, Hoiio wants to get people hooked onto its communication services.

For those who are not familiar with Hoiio, it is a mobile communications startup that is developing apps revolving around calling and texting.

Most recently, it won the People’s Choice’s Award at DEMO Asia 2012, a tech launchpad for startups in Asia.

It turned out that the company was actively canvassing for votes by automatically sending out SMSes using a mashup of a Google Spreadsheet and its product, Hoiio API. The API allows developers to easily add voice and text functionality to their mobile apps.

That extra step secured them the award.

The spreadsheet.

They have many consumer-facing products as well: There’s Hoiio Phone, a Skype-like app, Hoiio Chat, a free messaging app, and Hoiio Live, a just-launched phonebook app that syncs your contact information with your friend’s.

They’re also planning to unveil Hoiio Business, essentially an enterprise version of Hoiio Phone, and Hoiio Conference, an app for making conference calls. Business professionals and developers are their main target groups.

Tying all of this together is Hoiio Connect, now in private beta. While their API allows developers to add voice and text functionality to their apps, Hoiio Connect takes this one step further, allowing users to log in with their Hoiio account and access their own data.