The UK's second-largest largest mobile phone network, O2, will allow customers to use Twitter for free, up to 600 total messages, starting in August.
The move says something about the cost of sending and receiving text messages in the U.K. market, the new role social networking is playing in driving mobile data usage and suggesting the growth of a new niche within the mobility space.
As Blackberry devices catered to email centric users, and iPhones catered to mobile Web users, we should now see the emergence of service plans, and perhaps devices, optimzied for social networking or texting.
"We believe that mobile will soon become the most popular way of accessing social networking sites, giving real-time access to tweets and status updates wherever you are," says Antony Douglas, the head of content at O2.
O2's move follows Vodafone's earlier move to allow free Twitter status updates, though Vodafone's offer is billed as a "limited time" offer.
The move by O2 is a result of a deal between Twitter and the UK's mobile phone networks struck earlier this year. That deal followed Twitter's decision to stop its text message update service in 2008 as a result of the high cost of sending texts over the UK's networks.
Orange and T-Mobile are expected to produce their own Twitter services soon.
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