New York — With many of the profiles on MySpace, the social networking site’s users have posted approximately 4 billion photos. MySpace and Hewlett-Packard, on Tuesday announced that the two companies have teamed up to place a “Click to Print” button on MySpace pages, aimed at getting people to print out more of the billions of pictures digitally stored at the world’s leading social networking website.
The companies signed a letter of intent during HP’s annual imaging and printing conference in San Diego this week.
Initially, the program will make it easier for users to print MySpace images on their own printers, facilitating users to take advantage to print pictures from not only people’s profile photos, but ones that are inserted into blog posts, comments, messages, etc.
The buttons are expected to appear in November on MySpace in the U.S., Australia, Western Europe and Canada. And in the following months, people will be able to buy things emblazoned with photos from the site, MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said.
For example, bands with MySpace profiles might eventually set up their own online merchandise stores where people could choose photos they like and have them printed onto shirts through HP, he said.
“It is pretty powerful when you think we have over 5 million bands on MySpace,” he said.
“We are unlocking content from user profiles, friend’s comments, and photos that were previously only viewable online,” said HP Imaging and Printing Group vice president Vyomesh Joshi.
“Ultimately HP is enabling MySpace users to experience their content and to tell their story in a whole new way.”
“The MySpace platform is home to approximately four billion images and our users, from teens to grandparents, will now have an easier way to share their digital assets.”
MySpace, part of News Corp., did not released financial details of the agreement.
MySpace has multiple partnerships with companies to bring services to users. Last month, the company launched a digital music service that enables users to stream music free or buys songs through a partnership with Amazon.com. Since Amazon sells MP3s without digital rights management technology, users can play the songs on most devices, create their own playlists with up to 100 songs, and share their playlists with people who visit their profile pages.