Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are back together. In the wireless world, anyway. Both are participating in a new mobile blogging service offered by Sprint called BlogStar, which also counts Wesley Snipes, the Game and Bam Margera as contributors. The rich and famous stars are documenting their lifestyles with camera phones and posting pictures, text and, eventually, video to their personalized mobile blogs. Access to each blog costs $5 per month. Subscribers receive alerts when new posts are uploaded, to which they can leave replies as well as discuss content with other subscribers. It’s just one example of how the blogging and social networking that have taken the Internet by storm are going wireless. At a time when ringtone and wallpaper image sales are beginning to flatten, the music industry is looking for new mobile revenue streams and promotional opportunities. MySpace has a tremendously strong impact on the music industry, and now the pieces are in place for a wireless version to do the same. BlogStar CEO Keith Yokomoto — founder of the original ArtistDirect service — says he and ArtistDirect co-founder Ted Field formed BlogStar to better capitalize on MySpace’s promise. “Just imagine if 100,000 of your fans were all connected,” Yokomoto says. “You send out a blog that goes straight to their cell phone, and you’ve got an army of folks out there blogging back in real time. How powerful is that?” On paper, the marriage of blogs and mobile phones seems like a perfect match. Everyone seems to have a mobile phone, and increasingly these devices have photo and video cameras included. Supporters say the ability to blog on the fly rather than hold off until reaching a computer adds a more intimate, real-time element to the experience.

Yet mobile blogging is no slam-dunk. Camera phones may be ubiquitous, but only the most expensive actually take decent pictures, and video phones are even more expensive. What’s more, carriers face a herculean task in convincing subscribers — who for years have been trained to view their mobile devices as a tool for making voice calls — to start thinking of their phones as a mobile computer.

Companies like Text100, MyMMSBlog.com and SMS.ac pioneered the mobile blog space by providing wireless subscribers a means of posting camera phone pictures and text messages online. But their services never grew much beyond their novelty factor.

Sprint’s BlogStar service is one of many attempts to put a recognizable face on mobile blogging to generate interest and awareness among mobile phone subscribers — in this case by relying heavily on star power.

In the last two months, however, the 800-pound gorillas of the online social networking scene began muscling their way into mobile as well. In March, MySpace — by far the most influential service, with 36 million unique visitors and more than 60 million members as of March — struck a deal with startup youth-oriented wireless operator Helio. Users will be able to update their MySpace profiles with text and photos, as well as access the profiles of others, from their mobile phones. It’s expected to go live later this spring.

At the CTIA Wireless 2006 industry conference in early April, MySpace rival FaceBook — with about 10.5 million monthly unique visitors — rolled out a mobile extension to its service with Cingular, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Members initially will only be able to post text updates to their FaceBook profiles, with photos expected over time.

Others are following their lead. Intercasting’s Rabble mobile blog service now runs on Cingular and Verizon Wireless, which charge subscribers $3 per month to join. Los Angeles-based startup Juice Wireless launched its Juicecaster blog service at CTIA as well. Unlike online blogs now creating wireless extensions, Juicecaster was built from the ground up to integrate online and wireless posting and access.

Buzznet has been doing the same for the past two years, and recently won a contract with concert promoter Goldenvoice to power the integrated online and mobile social networking site of the upcoming Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif.

Wireless operators could not be more thrilled. The wireless industry has long believed that the successful mobile content and applications will be those that best take advantage of the communication elements of wireless. For years, the industry has been throwing everything it had at consumers to see what would stick.