| 25th September - MySpace announced
it's releasing a free advertising-supported mobile beta version of its popular
social networking site. The mobile version, which can be accessed from cell phone
browsers at mobile.myspace.com, offers up many of the features you can find on
MySpace. MySpace says you can send and receive messages and friend
requests; comment on pictures and profiles; post bulletins; update blogs; find
and search for friends; and view or change mood status. You can't upload pictures
directly from your phone, however. I tried it out this morning and I've had
trouble pulling up my friends' pictures. I'm not sure that's going to be the best
use of MySpace Mobile anyway. It's better to just keep up with messages or check
out your friends' moods. At any rate, it's nice to see MySpace making its
way on to cell phones for free. It's another case of advertising helping bring
free services to mobile. Fox said it will also be offering free ad-supported mobile
versions of its web sites FoxSports, IGN, AskMen and RottenTomatoes.com in the
coming months. MySpace has previously offered its service through carriers
like AT&T, T-Mobile and Helio, but those have been paid premium subscription
services that are often integrated into the phone menus. With the free service,
you'll want to bookmark the site and you'll have to get a data plan most likely,
but overall it's not that hard to access. Fox Interactive Media, which owns
MySpace, said it's working with Millennial Media to sell ads on MySpace and MySpace
Mobile. There doesn't appear to be ads now on the site but Fox said it will start
selling "charter sponsorships" for the mobile site soon and also begin
selling more targeted ads on MySpace Mobile by the end of the year.
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