Orange offers Locust stay of execution

Orange has seen sense and decided not to close down Locust, one of the few successful mobile content ventures on the internet.

Orange had offered a tarrif which enabled Locust to send news and other information to subscribers via SMS for a flat £3 per month, but decided it would be discontinued tomorrow, leaving Locust users in the lurch.

But today the mobile phone giant performed a u-turn which will enable the service to continue. The community will no longer be supported through the old tariff structure, but will move to a new number. Orange's content research arm, OrangeImagineering, will bankroll the venture from now on.

According to the community's founder Jon Anderson, the threat of extinction no longer hangs over Locust. However, the details of the deal are still being worked out and won't be finalised until the new year.

In a statement on his own website, Anderson said: "Locust has made contact with& OrangeImagineering, which is exploring forward-thinking applications and enablers for such services.

"OrangeImagineering sees value in learning from the success of Locust as a long-standing community and as such has agreed to support Locust with the understanding that Locust will work with OrangeWorld [Orange's content business] on joint research in online mobile communities.

"I am very pleased that Locust has come to a new home within Orange. I always believed that Orange originally supported Locust so that they could learn and benefit from it. I hoped that I could eventually work with them, to learn from our community and its technology."

Orange's decision to withdraw support for Locust generated significant publicity and a storm of protests from former Locust users.