Mobile Telcos Rush to Social Networking
Telecoms are vying to offer customers access to the likes of YouTube, MySpace, and Bebo from their mobile handsets
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As the social networking phenomenon continues to gather pace, mobile-phone providers are champing at the bit to become members of the club. On Mar. 28, France Telecom's (FTE) Orange UK mobile arm said it would begin offering its customers access to social networking site Bebo this summer.
The exclusive deal comes hot on the heels of Vodafone's (VOD) announcement in February that the world's largest mobile carrier had struck deals to cooperate with News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace social networking site and Google's (GOOG) YouTube video-sharing site, giving users access to their MySpace pages and allowing them to upload clips to YouTube from their handsets (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/13/07, "Vodafone and MySpace Connect to Conquer").