MySpace unveils mobile website revamp

Social networking giant MySpace announced the launch of a new, more integrated and device-optimized mobile website as well as its commitment to partner with handset makers Nokia and Palm to develop new applications for their respective platforms. The upgraded MySpace Mobile Website extends the firm's global site redesign to mobile, promising the 20 million global wireless subscribers who access the site each month  a look and feel more consistent with the online MySpace experience. For example, new UI components are optimized for devices with screen sizes 176 pixels wide and larger, complete with email photo upload configuration, an updated architecture, support for 13 languages and localization for 29 international markets. 

In addition, MySpace said it will develop fully integrated applications for both Palm's fledgling webOS and Nokia's S60 web runtime environment. The firm recently announced it will join the Symbian Foundation, stating it would help forge a more socially relevant context for developers creating applications on the platform. According to MySpace, it is now the first social network with applications supported on all smartphone platforms currently active in mobile social networking, which also includes iPhone, Android, Sidekick and BlackBerry.

MySpace reports it now has more than 130 million global users, 76 million of them in the U.S., where 40 million people visit its homepage each day. The company anticipates that in the next few years, 50 percent of users will access MySpace via mobile, adding that its international mobile growth now eclipses U.S. growth. In the last six months, MySpace's U.S. mobile usage has increased roughly 50 percent, while European mobile growth is up more than 80 percent and growth in Asia jumped 60 percent during same period. Late last year, MySpace announced [1] its integrated mobile solution customized for BlackBerry smartphones generated more than 400,000 downloads in its first seven days of release, an all-time high for both MySpace and device maker Research In Motion in terms of first-week downloads. MySpace added users collectively sent and received more than 15 million messages via the BlackBerry smartphone app and also updated their mood and status over 2 million times.

For more on the new MySpace Mobile Website:
- read this release [2]

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MySpace [4] befriends mBlox for text alerts
T-Mobile USA adds MySpace [5]