Cingular hooks up with Myspace

Atlanta (GA) - In a bid to bring social networking to cell phones, Cingular Wireless has created a deal with the social networking site Myspace to provide a mobile version of the online networking service.

Under the partnership, Cingular, which currently sponsors a ringtone service on Myspace, will initially have the exclusive mobile rights to Myspace. Cingular subscribers will be able to pay $3 per month to use a proprietary version of the site, which allows users to edit their profile and post pictures directly from a mobile handset.

Most cell phones cannot easily handle true Internet browsing, so the majority of online services are simplistic, graphical user interface (GUI) applications, like checking movie listings or weather forecasts.

However, a new trend is adding specific websites to the list. The Cingular/Myspace announcement comes just a couple weeks after Verizon announced partnerships with Youtube and Revver to bring user videos to a wireless platform.

Verizon V Cast subscribers will be able to access Youtube with no additional fee, unlike the specific Myspace service fee that Cingular will add. Although Cingular bills itself as the nation’s largest cell phone provider, it does not have a well-defined mobile Internet service like Verizon’s V Cast and Sprint’s PCS Vision.