Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/08/06/myspace_on_a_cloud/

MySpace elbows into the Cloud

Social netvomit now available wirelessly

By Bill Ray

Posted in Networks, 6th August 2008 06:02 GMT

MySpace has teamed up with The Cloud to offer UK social networkers free access to Wi-fi hotspots, so they can keep up with what their pretend friends are up to while out socialising.

The deal runs until October, and allows access to MySpace.com without charge from any of The Cloud's 7000 wi-fi hotspots. Anyone logging on to The Cloud, as paying customer or otherwise, will also be greeted with a brace of adverts for the downmarket social network.

Interestingly, the release from The Cloud describes the company as "[a] pioneering provider of free-to-end-user WiFi", which demonstrates just how flakey the paid-for Wi-fi business model is these days. With 3G connectivity becoming reasonably priced, and easier to use, we've stopped using hotspots at all these days. So The Cloud offers free access to everyone from buyers of Vista to viewers of Channel 4 radio, and sells advertising on the log-in page too.

For anyone over 30 MySpace constitutes a bewildering mass of video and audio streams apparently arranged at random by baboons, but the kids seem to enjoy it - so now those of them sporting Wi-fi equipped laptops can enjoy it for free when they're out and about. ®