A few months ago, Red Herring reported a joint venture between US based Earthlink and South Korea's SK Telecom to broaden mobile services and product offerings. The initial services were to include  youth-oriented products such as mobile music downloading, gaming, and blogging. Helio was born from that partnership.

The company's aims are simple - to bring South Korean mobile culture to the US. Whether it's trendy phones or pushing mobile content, Helio is  a "Mobile Virtual Network Operator" or MVNO . And it's exactly where other companies are trying to head - from Disneys mobile family networks to sports companies looking for the ultimate niche consumer. However there is concern that too many players in this still emerging market may not be the best idea.

"I think we will have a few that survive, and others will go by the wayside," said mobile industry analyst Iain Gillott, founder of iGillott Research. "We already have a lot of people going after that high-income, high-tech, comfortable-with-gadgets group" in a news.com article that first published this venture.

Helio meanwhile has released several mobile PDA handsets some with even reported Wi-Fi capabilities and products are slated to arrive in the US this spring. Many agree, they would do well in the high prices US markets.

Mobile blogging is also part of the formula. An agreement was recently announced with MySpace the popular social networking and personal expression site allowing exclusive access to it's services on Helio handsets (via Moconews ) although details are still lacking. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

MySpace however has over 54 million current users. It's a deal Helio simply cannot afford to lose out on.

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