Just as we’re finally getting MMS interconnect here in the US, O2 over in the UK has figured out yet another way to screw up MMS, says the indefatigable Alfie Dennen. The carrier used to send MMS to email addresses with the image simply attached, but has now reverted to the old “here’s a link to a Web page” message instead — a method I thought had been ditched some time ago (even here in the states). The result is that users of Alfie’s moblogUK UK service on O2 now can’t use MMS to send pictures to their blogs.

What’s the point? Just to make more money? To deliver the photo in such a way that there’s an opportunity for O2 to advertise? To try to encourage people to use its own photo-sharing service instead of an outside one? The answers to any of those really don’t seem sufficient. All users will see is a broken service, and a reason to switch carriers.

Every time it seems like some progress is being made to get operators to understand that throwing up obstacles for their users never works, we’re reminded that sadly, there are plenty of companies out there that just don’t get it.