YouTube coming to LG cell phones

The service will allow users to shoot video on their handsets and send it directly to the popular online video site, LG said in a statement. The first phones with the ability to do this will be available worldwide "at the end of the year."

LG already has links with YouTube parent company Google Inc. In March this year the two companies agreed to put various Google services on some models of LG cell phones. The first handset with such features, the LG-KS10, was launched in Italy in April and comes with Google search, Gmail for mobile and Google Maps for mobile preinstalled.

But the deal is far from exclusive. LG also inked a similar agreement with Google rival Yahoo Inc. to put that company's services on some handsets. Specifically, LG will install Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger on some handsets.

In some cases where the cellular carrier buys phones from LG and co-brands them, the software and features installed on the handset are decided by the carrier. In these cases phones might carry none of the Google or Yahoo applications.

YouTube launched a version of its service formatted for cell phones and other mobile devices earlier this year.