Vodafone moves into MySpace

Teenage angst on Vodafone Live!

Social networking site MySpace will be exclusively available through Vodafone Live!, the companies announced today.

The deal will allow Vodafone customers to upload photographs, respond to emails, and post blog entries to MySpace pages using their mobile phone.

Software to access MySpace will be available for download to some Vodafone Live! handsets, and over time will come pre-installed on most of them. Users will be able to do all the important things MySpace users want to - keeping their blog up to date and watching the friends they're not out socialising with at the time.

MySpace was bought by Fox Interactive for over £300m in 2005, and is battling increased competition for a notoriously fickle customer base. So anything which can add to the perceived "cool" factor of the service is essential: witness the launch of the MyMovie Mashup competition.

What's surprising is the exclusive nature of the deal, which would not seem to be to Fox's advantage: so it must be assumed that Vodafone is paying dearly for the market differentiation that exclusive access to MySpace can offer. ®