The HP-MySpace deal: Who needs this most? Not MySpace users.

HP and MySpace are partnering to "unlock the content of MySpace" by giving users the tools to print their pictures. You know, like to a printer. Hopefully, (wink wink) an HP printer.

On the surface, this sounds like a good plan. There are billions of images that are locked behind the walls of MySpace's photo albums, blog entries and friend comments. The HP partnership will allow those images to be printed with the click of an HP Print icon. The naysayer in me can't help but think that this doesn't sound like a ground-breaking deal for the consumer as much as it is for MySpace's business model and HP's printer-and-ink business. Consider the following:

• 1) I can already save a picture from any Web page to my hard drive and print it from there. The ability to print from a computer has been around for a generation already.

• 2) Rather than use the ink of my color printer for a dozen images, it's just as easy to upload those images to the CVS one-hour photo center down the street and pick up for the about 20 cents each - cheaper if I don't need them in an hour. And if you want to share with Grandma, upload them to her neighborhood pharmacy photo center (and pre-pay, too) so she can pick them up.

  

• 3) I know it's a broad assumption, but aren't most kids, teens, 20-somethings doing most of their picture sharing online or on their phones? I know my kids are. And the last time my daughter talked about sharing a photo album with a friend, she was talking about the photo books that are created on the Internet and arrive via UPS.

I applaud HP and MySpace for their effort and I do believe there is a market here. Analyst Rob Enderle and I chatted about this earlier and he reminded me that, while a lot of people are sharing online, there are still a large number of people who still prefer a real photo, something that can be framed or put in an album. That's true. There will be consumers who use this service.

But it also strikes me that the two companies - MySpace and HP - needed each other more than MySpace members needed a Print button. HP, in an effort to bring new life into its core printing and imaging business, wants to associate its brand and line of photo printers (and ink) with a popular, youth-centric name. MySpace and all of its members, on the other hand, is on track to partner with big name companies - first the record labels involved with last month's launch of MySpace Music and now HP - as a way of further validating its business model.

There are plans to extend the technology so members can upload their images and have them put on mugs, t-shirts, posters and so on - you know, like they already do at the mall or you can do with pretty much any online photo site. On the upside, as long as they're uploading photos for coffee mugs, maybe the partnerships can be extended to brick-and-mortar photo centers, where consumers can pick up a couple of prints in an hour.

Prints that were printed on HP printing equipment, of course.