You know, if this is played out right, it could be a good win for mobile phone carriers. Still, there is a fine line between making an effort to be there for the community and actually selling out to fund social Websites.

The culture gap between the rowdy social network site MySpace and the staid wireless carrier Verizon looks larger than the expanse between their respective West Coast and East Coast headquarters. MySpace’s youth-targeted, racy content and open display of personal information have been criticized by parents and politicians.

For the starchiest carrier in the United States, that’s the kiss of death. It’s no wonder that despite MySpace’s 76 million users, wireless executives still whisper about a MySpace/Verizon deal that fell through several months ago.

But the herds of users stampeding into the social network sites are too powerful a lure. The carriers have started to expand a few timid partnerships with social network sites. While college-targeted Facebook has had a text message-based service for cell phones over major carriers since April, Red Herring has learned that Facebook will soon release a cell phone feature that will enable users to search and browse Facebook pages, much like the original online experience. Facebook says its developers will soon release the product, which is based on wireless application protocol, or WAP (see Facebook Adds Mobile Internet)…. Source: Red Herring

[tags]cell phone,mobile,social network,hook up,facebook,wireless application[/tags]