The BBC has launched today its recently overhauled mobile website, which now emulates the new appearance of the recently-revamped bbc.co.uk. The seven-year-old site has been updated to reflect the fact that accessing the internet with mobile phones has vastly improved since 2001. The new design adds more interactive features and content, including a new section for BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat, which includes entertainment headlines and photographs. Sports is another content area that the BBC plans to focus their mobile efforts around, with promised coverage of the summer’s three big sporting events: soccer’s Euro 2008, The Beijing Olympics and Wimbledon.

The BBC is also backing the relaunch with a four-week marketing campaign for the new mobile service. The campaign will target soccer fans with TV, outdoor and ambient initiatives. In-ground media and ad-vans dispatched to live soccer matches will urge fans to text FOOTBALL to 81010 for a link to the BBC soccer site. At selected matches, Bluetooth at soccer grounds will be used to send fans a link to the mobile soccer site while the television trail will run on BBC channels from March 17.

According to research firm Nielsen mobile, the BBC’s mobile site is the UK’s leading wireless internet web service, attracting 2.7 million unique users per month (release).