Vodafone is planning on launching Internet-calling for cell phones  with Skype (owned by eBay inc.).   Vodafone showoff the application (Code-named Starfish) in the future zone of its booth at technology trade show, CeBIT. It is unknown exactly when the new service will be launched.According to Jan Holzberg, the manager for the product at Vodafone Group, "We have not yet decided if we will launch it, or the commercial terms and prices." Starfish allows a cellphone user to see a list of buddies from various chat and Internet calling groups, such as MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Skype, and send messages and make Internet calls.  [Read]

MySpace.com and Vodafone announced today an exclusive partnership to offer Vodafone customers a MySpace experience via their mobile phones.   The deal marks the first extension MySpace.com into the Europe.Launching first in the UK, the partnership will enable millions of Vodafone customers to access MySpace Mobile, allowing them to edit their own MySpace profiles, find and add friends, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages while on the move.MySpace Mobile will be pre-loaded on future, selected Vodafone handsets to offer customers an 'out of the box' experience, and available for download from Vodafone live!. MySpace Mobile on Vodafone provides the most compelling MySpace features and functionality, translated for a rich, easy-to-use experience on a mobile.  [Read]

Europe's biggest telecoms want to keep more of cell phone advertising in their pockets that hand it over to Google or Yahoo.  Some of Europe's biggest telecoms groups will hold talks next week about creating a mobile phone search engine.Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and American network Cingular will come together for talks at the industry's annual trade show in Barcelona, Spain, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported. The operators believe that creating their own search engine could help them to "retain a greater share of advertising revenues", it added. "There is a big play in mobile search that we need to be part of, and we are exploring those options at a very high level," an unnamed British executive at one of the companies involved told the paper.However, The implications for existing deals between the networks and the US search companies are not clear.  Google has signed up Vodafone, Hutchison's 3 and T-Mobile, while Yahoo! has signed up Vodafone and 3.  This will be interesting. [Read]