Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages.

The mobile industry has spent billions of pounds on licences to run new services over 3G networks, and reassured nervous investors that the future of mobiles in markets where everyone already has a phone is based on customers downloading videos and accessing the internet. But the take-up of such products has been slack.

However, videos showing household pets falling off the furniture or pictures of people willing to let the rest of the world vote on whether or not they are attractive have proved popular online, and the mobile operators hope they will be equally popular on their networks.

"Having invested in high-speed networks, user-generated content is an obvious next step, whether they do it themselves or work with existing online brands," says Frédéric Huet, managing director of industry specialist Greenwich Consulting UK. "It's very cheap to set up and it very quickly gets high usage.

"Anything that is 'sticky' and keeps consumers coming back is welcome news for the operators. It's one thing to check the news headlines every day or so, but if a consumer knows their photo is up on the site, or they have a video that people are downloading, they are going to be paying a lot more attention."

Early experiments certainly suggest there is a nascent market to be tapped. In August, Orange's "Buff or Rough" service, which allows people to vote on whether or not they think a particular victim willing to post a photo is worth a second look, notched up 1m votes in a week, double the previous month.