Australians Locked Out Of MySpace Mobile Web
That didn’t take very long… the free-for-all ad-funded MySpace Mobile page announced on monday is no longer accessable from Australia. It worked for a while, but “by lunchtime, following queries from smh.com.au, Australians attempting to visit the site were automatically redirected to the regular version of MySpace, rather than the one optimised for mobile phones” reports the SMH. I’ve included a screenshot here to show what we get redirected towards: That red bar along the side shows where you can scroll down, it’s about four screens deep. According to the SMH: “MySpace spokesman Darain Faraz, when asked why the functionality was suddenly switched off, would only say: “This is a US initiative that doesn’t affect any Australian MySpace agreement.”…An industry source said Optus had paid MySpace a significant amount of money for the exclusivity.” I can imagine the conversation… “Hi, MySpace? Optus here. We seem to have different definitions of the word “exclusive”, maybe it’s a cultural thing…”
It’s not too bad — the agreement was began on August 1st and the period of exclusivity is for 3 months, so from November 1st it should be generaly available. Of course, Australia isn’t the only problem…Last month Canada’s Rogers Wireless also signed an exclusive deal with MySpace…
What is the URL for MySpace Mobile? Plus they can't block all Aussies unless all Aussie carriers give them their IP range addresses… I doubt that has occurred.
http://mobile.myspace.com
I'm assuming they detect what is being used to contact them, including the carrier.
They could try accessing the MySpace mobile site by entering the the numeric-domain equivalent of term 'myspace', in their mobile browser. That is (http://) 6977223.com.
Works here in Canada, even if you're not a Rogers subscriber.
I'm pretty sure that takes you to the web version of MySpace, rather than the mobile-specific version.
@jon – I agree that getting all the carrier IP blocks would be a HUGE pain!
An easier solution would be for myspace to redirect all aussie traffic (using a GeoIP service like Maxmind) hitting the 'mobile' subdomain and redirect it to their desktop version.
Then, when the Optus deal is ready to launch they'd just get the Optus IP blocks and open up access to the mobile site for those IP's =)
There is a great site I found which contains myspace mobile access http://www.t9space.com . I also used for other groups .Cool