U.K. mobile operator Orange has announced a partnership with Twitter to introduce MMS support on Twitter.
Orange U.K. users will now be able to send picture messages to each other, in addition to the usual text messages, through 86444 – the Twitter SMS number. Orange has created a new sub domain, called Snapshot, for this purpose:
Snapshot by Orange
Users who don’t currently use Twitter with Text Messaging will, have to first send the message saying ‘START’ to 86444. The same number is currently also used to tweet via SMS from the Vodafone and O2 networks and will be used for MMS tweeting as well.
Once the service has started, users will be able to click a photo on their mobile phone and then send it via MMS to 86444. The pictures will appear on the Orange Snapshot site and will be tweeted with a link to the image on the user’s Twitter stream.
Snapshot is similar in concept to Twitpic, one of the most popular photo-sharing applications associated with Twitter. The only advantage that Orange has is that their users will be able to send MMS tweets to the standard Twitter mobile number directly from their handsets.
Users will not be required to pay any additional fees to Twitter, for this service. Only the usual messaging charges of the service provider will apply.
As part of the deal between Twitter and Orange, Twitter will also be part of the Social Life service, along with Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. This is a service provided by Orange that allows mobile users to access all these social networks with a single log-in.
While Orange, Vodafone and O2 are now quite tuned in to Twitter, T-Mobile and 3 are yet to follow suit.
