MySpace Mobile: If you can't beat 'em...

Yesterday I popped along to a briefing with O2, who have just launched their latest "50 to watch in mobile" list. Top of the pile is Yospace (not be confused with Mytube, I suppose), a mobile user-generated content company not a million miles away from the MySpace/YouTube concept (except users pay to download clips, and the uploader gets paid each time).

It will be very interesting to see how companies like Yospace fare in the coming years, actually. Will the punters go for a mobile-centric service like theirs, or do they want to use their favourite web apps on their phones? Another example is search - do these gazillion upstart start-ups really think they can beat the mighty Google on handsets?

Some would say the smart money would be on the big web brands conquering the mobile empire. People know them already and - crucially to the whole user-generated content thingy - would quite like to have a "seamless" experience whatever system they're running the app on.

Hence, today's announcement of an exclusive partnership between Vodafone and - you guessed it - MySpace. According to the press release, "the partnership will enable millions of Vodafone customers to access MySpace Mobile, allowing them to edit their own MySpace profiles, find and add friends, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages while on the move".

MySpace Mobile will even be pre-loaded on certain future Vodafone handsets, so this is a serious tie-in. And, in my humble estimation, a pretty smart move on the part of Vodafone. If there's one lesson to learn from the IP Revolution, it's that you can't tell the punters what they should use - you have to listen instead and take it from there.