When Blyk, the ad-funded, youth targeted MVNO, scored 40 million euros ($50.5 million) in its latest round of funding a few weeks ago, it also announced that it was embarking on a new “partnership strategy”, though no details of what these entailed were given at the time. The company has now said it is rolling out one of its first partnership programs with mobile marketing platform provider Velti. The two plan to launch in January a new mobile content service aimed at providers that will use text messaging and MMS as its “preferred” format.

The service, according to Blyk UK CEO Shaun Gregory, would place content links into text or MMS messages, much like email alerts can embed links to take users to a web site. Gregory says it’s a much better method and “cuts down on the pain and barriers” of surfing on the mobile web to find content. The service, as with Blyk’s existing ad service, is opt-in only, which means users will only get the content they’ve agreed to receive. As a very basic example, Gregory said that users who were interested in celebrity news could opt-in to get messages directing them to content from Heat magazine. Content providers and Blyk will split the revenues, though Gregory declined to say how they would be divided. He also declined to comment if Velti got a share. The company is expected to announce the “number of” content providers they’ve lined up to use the service early next year. 

The new service for “content partners” is one of a number that Blyk hopes to strike as it tries to broaden its business. Gregory notes that the Blyk model provides a “huge end to end process” for mobile advertising, one that could be rolled out quicker to other countries if more partners—including operators, advertising agencies, technology providers and content companies—were involved.