Vodafone signs free tweets deal with Twitter

Twitter has signed a new commercial deal with Vodafone that will allow UK customers to send and receive ‘tweets’ across the mobile phone network.

The new partnership is the first commercial deal of its kind in the UK between the micro-blogging site and a mobile network.

The service will allow Vodafone UK customers to receive SMS updates from Twitter free of charge, something that had previously been restricted to North America.

A Twitter spokesperson said: “Sending tweets from your mobile will be part of your normal text messaging bundle with Vodafone – there will be no extra fees.”

The deal comes just a day after Twitter unveiled plans to launch an enhanced version of its service, specifically designed for commercial users, in a bid to cash it on the site’s increasing popularity.

Yesterday, Twitter’s founder Biz Stone, said: “We have lots of time for experimentation with regard to revenue generation, so we’ll probably be trying a few different things this year.

“We think there will be opportunities to provide services to commercial entities that help them get even more value out of Twitter,” he added.

Twitter is becoming more and more popular among business users – Microsoft and online marketing company Federated Media both launched ExecTweets earlier on in the week, a website that allows users to see Twitter messages from business executives.

Around seven million people used the sight in February, according to data from Nielsen Online.