will be brought together within Orange World. The new service combines access to the sites’ popular functions into a single destination. The news follows the completion of partnership agreements with MySpace, Facebook^[1] and Bebo^[2] whose members will be able to view their profile updates – emails, comments from friends, recently uploaded pictures - alongside others from Skyrock^[3], Pikeo, Flirtomatic^[4], DailyMotion^[5] and Meetic^[6].

The service, which lets users keep in touch with their friends wherever they are, has launched in France and will follow soon in the UK, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. It works by displaying the most popular functions of multiple social networks side by side these so that they can be accessed far more simply with one click. Consumers will now be able to receive and send messages, upload photos and check status updates without having to browse individual URLs or log into separate sites. Orange plans to evolve the service from Orange World to an embedded application, accessible from the home screen of Orange Signature phones. The ultimate goal is to bring these communities together across all three screens: mobile, PC and TV.

“Our partnership with MySpace shows that mobile is a seamless extension of the online experience, not an alternative to it,” said Olaf Swantee, Head of Orange’s global mobile operations. “This service illustrates how Orange is aggregating digital content to simplify access to social networks from mobile devices. In future, Orange will deliver digital entertainment across mobile, TV and broadband, giving consumers content not just where they want it, but how they want it.”

Orange is Europe’s leading provider of broadband, reaches 5.8 million mobile TV subscribers and attracts 61 million unique visitors per month to its online properties worldwide. The provision of aggregated content and exclusive entertainment across mobile, broadband and TV is central to the company’s advertising solutions.

Paul-Francois Fournier, Senior Vice President for Portal Strategy and Online Advertising at Orange says: “At Orange, we are committed to giving over 170 million customers the best and most user-friendly multimedia experience possible, whether on the mobile, the Web or IPTV. This new service will give our mobile customers easy and optimised access to the most popular Internet online communities on their mobile, so they can take it with them wherever they go.” Paul Francois concludes, “It also supports our cross platform advertising strategy with a compelling offer for advertisers to reach all those different communities in one single place on Orange World portals".

^[1] Facebook is available initially only in the UK

^[2] Bebo is available initially only in the UK

^[3] Skyrock is available initially only in France

^[4] Flirtomatic is available initially only in the UK

^[5] DailyMotion is available initially only in France

^[6] Meetic is available initially only in Spain and France