It's been quite a week for Vodafone, which is making a strong play to show 3 that more than one operator can play this Mobile 2.0 game. Having signed deals with MySpace and eBay earlier in the week, now it's announced a deal to launch YouTube Mobile.
Full unmediated access to the video-sharing site? Not quite. The press release carefully describes it as "a YouTube experience" that lets customers access "a version of the popular YouTube service directly from Vodafone live!".
Customers will be able to watch new videos daily, upload their own content, and forward recommendations to friends. It's launching in the UK initially, before rolling out across other European countries.
Vodafone and YouTube say they'll be exploring ways to enhance the offering in the coming months. I'm wondering if the wording of the announcement means this'll be a walled-garden YouTube just for Vodafone users, along the lines of 3's See Me TV, or whether it'll just include the most popular videos from YouTube proper, augmented by Voda users' own clips.
In the long-term, you'd expect YouTube to sign deals with all the mobile operators. But by being the first in the UK to put pen to paper, Vodafone is staking out its Mobile 2.0 credentials alongside 3. What will O2, T-Mobile and Orange do in response?