It’s time once more for that predictable roll-up of social networks onto mobile operator platforms. Orange’s new Orange World service aggregates the popular functions of many of Europe’s social networking sites onto one mobile web page so you can view and make any updates with one click. The news follows the completion of partnership agreements with MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, whose members will be able to view their profile updates – emails, comments from friends, recently uploaded pictures – alongside others from Skyrock, Pikeo, Flirtomatic (older uk startup), DailyMotion and Meetic. All of these are available initially only in the UK except for, Skyrock and DailyMotion (only France) and Meetic (only in Spain and France).
Whether this is enough to keep Orange users on Orange is another point. As browsers improve on mobiles (iPhone etc) it’s really the data costs and browser experience many people will be interested in, rather than catch-all services like this.