Free Wi-Fi for UK MySpace users

Social network MySpace has signed a promotional deal to bring free Wi-Fi to its UK users... but only to access MySpace-owned pages.

It's partnered with The Cloud, a wireless provider that powers broadband access in establishments such as hotels, restaurants and airports. MySpace users will now be able to access the social network on The Cloud's paid-subscription hotspots. The access company runs about 7,000 of them in the UK.

It's a cool idea. It would've been an interesting extension of credential portability if social-network logins could be used to access Wi-Fi hot spots that would otherwise require subscriptions. But with access limited to MySpace (and what happens if something hosted on an external server is embedded in a MySpace profile?), this deal's usefulness is really limited, along the lines of having Starbucks' free wireless access limited to the iTunes Store.

But it's a nifty promotion for the UK, where MySpace is struggling to compete with Bebo and Facebook. The test runs until October, and will be cross-promoted on both The Cloud and MySpace.