Cricket Communications is offering its customers some new perks. Actually, it launched a new opt-in service called MyPerks that delivers free content like weather, gas prices, trivia or celebrity gossip to the phone's idle screen. The content is accompanied by "occasional offers" from Cricket's advertising partners including Jack in the Box, 1-800-Flowers, ESPN, Wal-mart, Dairy Queen, Progressive Insurance and Jiffy Lube.

All content and offers are currently tailored by location. Cricket anticipates adding targeting by user preference in the near future to make the service more relevant.

Once users have downloaded the MyPerks application, they'll start receiving their desired content when the phone is idle and have the option to click on the banner ad or ignore it to get right to the content. Because the service takes advantage of the phone's idle time, it doesn't interrupt phone calls, text messaging or other activities.

Cricket MyPerks is powered by Mobile Posse and is currently available for download on select Motorola, Samsung and UTStarcom phones.