UK mobile operator O2 has backtracked from a change in the way multimedia messages are delivered via e-mail after complaints from mobile bloggers.

Mobloggers rely on e-mailing bits of multimedia content as attachments to post directly on blogs from mobiles.

In July, O2 changed that so that the e-mail arrived as a web link instead.

O2 said it would "improve customer experience" because recipients of the e-mails would see multimedia elements together online, as senders intended.

A spokesperson for O2 told the BBC News website that it would be reverting to the original way multimedia messages were sent, as separate attachments, until a new solution was in place.

"We have listened to the feedback customers have given us and have involved the blogging community in the testing of the new solution," she said.

Powerful communities

She added that the feedback had predominantly come from key figures within the blogging community.

"The aim of the introduction of the new service, in mid-July, was to improve the experience in MMS to e-mail delivery.

"However, this has shown us that the non-traditional recipients, such as blogging sites, have a variety of requirements to be met and we are working to a solution where the experience is great for all."

The O2 spokesperson said the moblogging community had told the company they preferred media messages to be sent as attachments.

The turnaround shows how powerful web communities have become.

"You only have to look at the amount of posts on blogs following the recent events in London to see how much people are using mobile data in that way," she said.

Sending costs

The change only affected multimedia messages that were sent as e-mails. It did not impact the sending of MMS in the usual way.

A further concern for people using O2's network was the cost implication of changing the method of delivery.

Some were worried that it meant 02 was not bearing the cost of delivering an e-mail with attachments, but transferring that cost to see the message to the recipient.

The spokesperson confirmed however that the cost for O2 under the new system was exactly the same, whether it delivered the message as attachments or as a link to the whole message.

"They would only pay the standard WAP charges to access their e-mail account from their mobile," she said.

"If they then sent the data via MMS to another destination they would then incur the standard MMS cost. The cost to the sender is the standard MMS charge."

People often pay for GPRS access in bundles of data, 4MB or 8MB data bundles, for instance.