Helio, a MVNO joint venture between South Korea’s SK Telecom and Earthlink, announced Wednesday that it would launch a YouTube Mobile application for all users of its Ocean Handset at no additional price. The device will allow mobile users access to community features on the site for the first time, the company said.

The new application is by far much better than Google’s YouTube mobile site at m.youtube.com, as it allows its users to view YouTube videos, rate and comment upon them and upload newly recorded videos as well. Users will be able to share favorite videos with friends in the phone’s contact list or to add a video to their list of Favorites and create new video playlists. Users can also geotag their video uploads using GPS, so people can see where they shot a video.

"Accessing YouTube while on the go has been limited to browsing and viewing, without the rating, sharing and personalization features that have made YouTube a runaway hit on the Web. Helio is taking mobile YouTube beyond anything else on the market, letting members view tens of millions of videos but also giving them true community interaction comparable to the Web and even beyond the Web?” said Sky Dayton, CEO of Helio

"Helio has taken the mobile YouTube experience to the next level. This innovative application offers people even more customization and provides them with instant access to interact with the YouTube community whenever and wherever they go," said Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder, YouTube.

The application seems to work fine in general, but there are still some things that need to be improved. For example, the quality of the videos on the YouTube Mobile application does not match that of the main website, as most clips require a fair amount of buffering before they start. Another inconvenient seems to be how the user gets back to the navigation tabs quickly from the video viewer, as the application tends to start rebuffer previous clips when the back button is hit.