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Vodafone To Offer MySpace On Cell Phones

Vodafone agreed to offer MySpace to its European subscribers. Get ready for hyper-personalization on your cell phone.

U.S. carrier Cingular Wireless announced a similar deal with MySpace in December last year. MySpace last year also inked a deal with wireless service Helio. With at least three big-name announcements under MySpace's belt, I guess it's now official: Social networking is mobile.

What can users expect from the mobile version of MySpace over on Vodafone's network? A bigger cell phone bill to begin with. The new Vodafone service will include BOTH a subscription fee AND costs for uploading data, including photos and other content.

And don't think the U.S. version is free either. Cingular's MySpace service costs an extra $2.99 per month.

Mobile analysts warn that charging for MySpace could stunt mobile uptake with consumers. In plain English, most subscribers already pay enough for mobile voice and data. Do they really want to pay even more for a stripped-down version of a Web service they can use for free on their desktops?

The response: Tell that to carrier SMS revenues, which continue to grow, even as e-mail remains free on the desktop. While carriers have been able to make money off SMS and corporate e-mail, the rest of the mobile Web has been the perpetual little engine that could.

Analysts usually blame two factors for this. First, the fact that the carriers charge too much for mobile Internet access and tack extra fees on top of those charges. These additional costs, as mentioned above, supposedly hamper growth. Second, carriers refuse to open their mobile Web portals to the full Internet, limiting both the utility of the mobile Web and restricting user creativity, something which analysts claim is integral to the continued growth and innovation of the desktop Web.

Others claim that cell phones may not be suited for more robust Web applications. According to this line of argument, cell phones are perfect for serial tasks, like messaging, but are ill-suited for applications like surfing the Web or social networking.

What do you think? Is the convenience of a social networking site like MySpace worth a bigger cell phone bill? Would you use MySpace on your cell phone, even if it was free?

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