Planet Mobile Web - W3C

Live Journal’s Instant Mobile Blogs [Wap Review]

2009-11-11T21:37:18+00:00

LiveJournal is one of the oldest blogging platforms, launching in 1999 and remains one of the most popular today with over 23 million users. In addition to being a free platform for publishing a personal blog or journal, Live Journal has strong social networking features including group blogs (called communities), profiles and friends lists. Individual posts and entire blogs can be configured to be readable by friends only.

Well known Live Journal blogs include the gossip site ONTD (mobile) and Julie and Julia (mobile), the blog turned best selling book and blockbuster movie.

Live Journal, like VOX, MSN Spaces and WordPress.com is another blogging platform that automatically generates a mobile friendly edition of each published blog. Unlike the others, Live Journal doesn't appear to use browser detection to redirect mobile browsers to the mobile edition. Mobile LiveJournals have non-intuitive URLs like m.livejournal.com/read/user/journal_name The easiest way to find a specific mobile journal seems to be by using the search engine on the main Live Journal mobile site at m.livejournal.com/read.

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - RSS - Blogging

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 4 "Good"

Mobile Link: m.livejournal.com

Heroes of the Mobile Screen – 7 Dec 09 at the BFI Southbank, London [MobileMonday London]

2009-11-11T13:54:59+00:00

Some of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to of late. Well, if you have, then I can reveal to you that I’ve been working on a new conference, Heroes of the Mobile Screen, which is on next month on 7 December at the rather wonderful BFI on London’s Southbank. And I’d love for you to spread the word (like our wonderful media partners), buy tickets and join the conversation. And I’m afraid this has taken our attention for the last few weeks which means we’ve had to cancel November’s Mobile Monday London event. Hopefully, this will all make up for it.

The team behind the conference, Isabel Fox, Neil Robertson, Carlo Longino, Dominic Travers and yours truly are also involved in running Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest events amongst other things.

The day-long event at BFI Southbank will differ from anything else around (at least that’s what we’re aiming for) and get the stakeholders of mobile involved in discussing the issues affecting them and their customers. Uniquely the event also has teenagers on stage to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

Doug Richard, David Whitewood of Hotxt.
For further info please contact:
Isabel Fox
020 7062 1192
isabel@ballard-associates.co.uk
This image is copyright the photographer 2005©.
This image has been supplied by onEdition and must be credited onEdition. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. All rights reserved. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. If you are in any way unsure of your right to publish this image please contact onEdition on +44(0)20 7978 1459 or email: " />

Doug Richard, David Whitewood of Hotxt.
For further info please contact:
Isabel Fox
020 7062 1192
isabel@ballard-associates.co.uk
This image is copyright the photographer 2005©.
This image has been supplied by onEdition and must be credited onEdition. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. All rights reserved. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. If you are in any way unsure of your right to publish this image please contact onEdition on +44(0)20 7978 1459 or email: ">">

Doug Richard, David Whitewood of Hotxt.
For further info please contact:
Isabel Fox
020 7062 1192
isabel@ballard-associates.co.uk
This image is copyright the photographer 2005©.
This image has been supplied by onEdition and must be credited onEdition. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. All rights reserved. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. If you are in any way unsure of your right to publish this image please contact onEdition on +44(0)20 7978 1459 or email: ">">

Doug Richard, David Whitewood of Hotxt.
For further info please contact:
Isabel Fox
020 7062 1192
isabel@ballard-associates.co.uk
This image is copyright the photographer 2005©.
This image has been supplied by onEdition and must be credited onEdition. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. All rights reserved. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. If you are in any way unsure of your right to publish this image please contact onEdition on +44(0)20 7978 1459 or email: <info@onEdition.com>" border="0" alt="20051204 onEdition Copyright image 2005©

Doug Richard, David Whitewood of Hotxt.
For further info please contact:
Isabel Fox
020 7062 1192
isabel@ballard-associates.co.uk
This image is copyright the photographer 2005©.
This image has been supplied by onEdition and must be credited onEdition. The author is asserting his full Moral rights in relation to the publication of this image. All rights reserved. Rights for onward transmission of any image or file is not granted or implied. Changing or deleting Copyright information is illegal as specified in the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. If you are in any way unsure of your right to publish this image please contact onEdition on +44(0)20 7978 1459 or email: <info@onEdition.com>" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4JjonBsS8ms/SvdSHJ8nTmI/AAAAAAAAAVA/NXGeeK6_gVw/Doug_Richard%20M5876_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="114" height="170"> Heroes of the Mobile Screen is already attracting a number of high calibre ‘heroes’ with speakers and panellists answering the call from around the world, including Kei Shimada, JP Rangaswami and Kevin Marks, Belinda Parmar, Julia Shalet, Doug Richard and Harald Neidhardt are all confirmed. The speakers are listed here and the agenda can be found here.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen opens with a keynote from Kei Shimada sharing his experience of what’s happening in Japan and what we can learn from that here in the West. And continues with four core pillars supporting discussion throughout the day.

The money
What's making money, who's making money and what's being invested in and where the money's going to be in the future? The answers to all the questions we want to ask of successful mobile service providers and VCs.

The impact of social/location
What is the impact of social media and location technology? What do customers want, what are the business models, what are the solutions to privacy issues. Carriers are placing their bets in this area, but will they pay off?

Teenage heroes
Led by digital youth marketing expert Julia Shalet (pictured left), this is a new format where we invite four companies to pitch their product, service or device live on stage to six teenagers and they tell us what they really think.

Real customers, real applications, real marketing
A double session with the first half covering customers and what they really want on mobile with a focus on women in particular with some new research and insight into what women want from Belinda Parmar of Lady Geek. The second half will cover mobile marketing and advertising, what's working, what's not and what's coming next.

I came up with idea around the event because we realised that most of the events I attend throughout the year all talk around the same subjects, with the same people and bring up the same issues, without resolution. It’s time for us to stop talking to ourselves, look out beyond our industry and make some changes for the better. I believe it’s important to engage our colleagues in marketing, web 2.0 and media as well as more of our mobile colleagues from throughout the value chain. The exciting stuff is going to happen when industries cross over – that’s where the innovation is. In putting the agenda together, we believe we have something that will appeal to a wide audience – whether you’re a director of marketing for an FMCG brand or a web developer toying with the idea of developing apps for android or iphone. And to do that, we need to share real customer insight that we can use to make ours and others mobile lives better.

Tickets are now available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee) at http://mobileheroes.net . We’ve kept the price deliberately low and it’s subsidised by sponsors who we’ll be able to announce shortly.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the event in some way, please get in touch with me via email.

If you’re interested in pitching your gadget, application or service to our teenagers, please email Dominic Travers to put your name forward.

We are keeping a waiting list for potential speakers and panellists. If you’d like to be considered, please contact me.

So get your tickets now and become a fan on Facebook or follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/hotms too.

Technorati Tags: conference,mobile monday,mobile monday london,events,london,mobile media,mobile marketing,mobile applications,mobile network operators,learning,networking

Social media 09 event .. [Open Gardens]

2009-11-11T09:38:13+00:00

On Thursday this week there is an eight week focus in London of some 40 social media conference and events. mashup* is the kick off event with the speakers including Sarah Beeny (Channel 4), Robin Wight (President Engine and WCRS) Mat Morrison, Giles Rhys Jones (Ogilvy Group), Andrew Grill and many more

This event on Thursday 12th Nov from 14.00 so you can get a good mornings work done, grab a bite to eat on the way and spend an afternoon learning, sharing and understanding how social media is being used across business, government, charity & politics.

see more at
Social media 2009 event

How To Use Taptu’s New Real-Time Search For iPhone/Android On Any Phone. [Wap Review]

2009-11-10T19:42:47+00:00

My favorite mobile search engine, Taptu, added a new option today - "real-time" search. So what is real time search and how is it different from plain old search?

Google is pretty quick at updating its index. I typically find that my own posts show up in Google within about an hour and searches for specific breaking national or international news stories return something relevant in Google as soon as the story hits major news sites. But that's not real-time search.

"Real-Time Search" is more of a Web 2.0 codeword than a metric of actual search engine speediness. It refers to searching the "Real-Time Web", which is another codeword that mostly means "Twitter". The idea is that people constantly Tweet about stuff as soon as they see or hear of it and that a 140 character Tweet only takes seconds to compose, unlike an AP news item, for example, that might take 15 minutes to write, edit and post to the wire. Recently Twitter, and to a lesser extent sites like Facebook and Digg, have been scooping major news organizations with the first reports of events like the Iranian election protests, September's Indonesian earthquake and the TWA Hudson river crash. The message is that if you want to find out what's happening in the world, follow Twitter not CNN.

Taptu is getting its real-time results from OneRiot which searches Twitter and Digg to find breaking news and buzz. Rather than linking directly to Tweets and Diggs, OneRiot looks for the most shared links within them. A OneRiot search result looks a lot like one from Google or Bing, a list of links to and descriptions of content from a wide variety of web sources.

At least initially, Taptu's One Riot powered real-time search (labeled "Buzz") is only available on the iPhone and Android devices, at least officially. I found that Taptu's iPhone/Android start page can be accessed using any browser at taptu.com/home. It works very well in Opera Mini 4.2 (images above) and 5.0. It also works in the Nokia browser on my N95, with some minor layout issues. Taptu's real-time search enabled iPhone version, which has a page size of around 40 KB and doesn't require JavaScript, should be at least functional, if not pretty, in the vast majority of mobile browsers. It looks best on devices having good CSS support and screens at least 320px wide.

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Search/Web Search

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 4 "Good"

Mobile Link: taptu.com/home/

Review Browsergames Forum 2009 in Frankfurt [PavingWays]

2009-11-10T16:57:14+00:00

Last week we attended the Browsergames Forum 2009 in Frankfurt. This forum/conference brought together people and companies from the browser based games area. Germany is a serious location for all browser games (BigPoint, Travian Games, Innogames …) so it wasn’t really surprising that 90% of all attendees were German as well, but we also met people from Bulgaria, Portugal and Israel.

Recently, we have been developing two mobile browser based games for UK clients (news about those soon here) and this conference was perfect for us to see what is going on in this market, what are the upcoming trends and how to make money in this area.

There were several talks, with topics ranging from programing, monetizing, financing to marketing and legal topics and they answered most of our questions above. Unlike typical web startups it seemed to me that browser game companies do not struggle with finding their business model and earning money. They make (in many cases loads of) money, especially by selling items to users.

And options for these item sales are virtually unlimited. Patrick Streppel (CEO Gamigo Games AG) talked about the possibilities. His company had replaced fantasy cars for real and licensed cars (such as BMW, Audi, …) in a game, because the users wanted that and it felt more natural to them and accordingly sales increased vastly. Another interesting story was that in the game you can buy golf clubs which can be used 100,000 times and then have to be replaced by a new one. In another game the users can buy an insurance for their sword in order to be protected against damage. “Buy one, get one free” campaigns or bundle sales are very popular too. There were also some companies offering monetisation models for free-to-play games, such as SponsorPay or fatfoogoo. With these players can basically get premium services or virtual goods/money in games by doing surveys or signing up for other services etc.

Most of the game companies act international due to their international user base. For example the well-known Pennergame (Farbflut Entertainment GmbH) is available in five languages, has 3.5 mio registered users and 3 bn page impressions worldwide. Most of their revenue still comes from advertising and merchandising, but they also started selling items in the game now.

Other big trends in the browser game market are Facebook-based games and 3D-Graphics.

I really enjoyed the conference. The browser game market is really huge. Interestingly, no one was talking about the upcoming opportunities in the mobile web space, especially the app store topic wasn’t considered at all. I am pretty sure that we will also see a lot of growth in this area soon. And who knows, maybe we will be presenting something about the mobile browser game market at the next Browsergame Forum in 2010.

Automated testing of a browser engine [W3C Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group]

2009-11-10T14:56:06+00:00

“The cornerstone of all testing done on the core of the Opera browser is our automated regression testing system, named SPARTAN. The system consists of a central server and about 50 test machines running our 120 000 automated tests on all core reference builds. The purpose of this system is to help us discover any new bugs we introduce as early as possible, so that we can fix them before they cause any trouble for our users.”

Links for 2009-11-09 [del.icio.us] [Volker Hirsch]

2009-11-10T08:00:00+00:00

The Digital Divide in Numbers: TVs, PCs, Internet users, Mobile around the world

Don Dodge - exit interview at Techcrunch [Open Gardens]

2009-11-10T06:56:47+00:00

Microsoft loses Don Dodge. Like many people, I feel this was a bad mistake .. In a world where Apps and Appstores make everything into a platform, the value of a person who can engage with third parties effectively is invaluable!

Free Real-Time Quotes and “Guru” Analysis from NASDAQ.com Mobile [Wap Review]

2009-11-09T19:04:09+00:00

The mobile version of NASDAQ.com, launched today, offers real-time and after-hours stock quotes, news, charts, commentary and "Guru Analysis", which rates stocks based on the formulas touted by eight different investment analysts. The mobile site which was created by mDog.com, is attractive and easy to navigate and should work well with most mobile browsers, although the site's 42 KB page size may be too large for some feature phone browsers.

NASDAQ, the second largest U.S. stock exchange, was the world's first electronic stock market when it lauched in 1971. Since 1996 the exchange has operated NASDAQ.com, providing investors with quotes, news and investment analysis for stocks traded on all the US markets including NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE and OTC. In 2006, NASDAQ was the first U.S.exchange to provide free real time quotes, which are available on mobile.nasdaq.com as well.

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Business/Quotes & Trading

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 3 "Fair"

Mobile Link: mobile.nasdaq.com

Google acquires Admob for $750m - Congrats Russell Buckley .. [Open Gardens]

2009-11-09T17:49:44+00:00

Google acquires Admob for $750m - Congrats Russell Buckley .. VP alliances of Admob who has been an architect of their vision from the outset. Russell has also been my first two contacts in the industry(Along with Simon Buckingham of Mobile Streams) and its been ten years since I have watched Zagme and then Admob.

Very well deserved!

It's a great move for both companies and for the industry as a whole. shows Google's commitment to mobile!

Very nice note from Omar on their site

There has never been a better time to be in this industry!

From Omar's note -
I've been working in mobile for over 7 years now. Before AdMob, I founded two separate mobile startups that never got significant traction. It was so frustrating to build what I knew was an incredible service only to find myself unable to distribute or monetize the product without a carrier or handset deal. Turns out, I wasn't the only one. Talk to any veteran in mobile and they will tell you just how hard it was to get things done only a few years ago. I remember we used to have a cynical saying that summarized both the promise that mobile possessed and the monumental barriers we could not cross: "Mobile is the future, and always will be."

That frustration is what led me to found AdMob a few years ago while I was in grad school. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to gather a tremendously talented group of employees. Together we've been a part of helping to create a healthy and vibrant environment where developers and publishers, small and large, can both promote their services as well as benefit from the attention and usage their products attract. In our early days we were focused primarily on the mobile web, and gained immense satisfaction from each new business that our service made possible within the mobile browser.

Then came the iPhone. Suddenly, Apple solved so many problems that had plagued mobile for so long. They showed all of us the way forward and their efforts have led to a landslide of rapid improvements in our space. We were so excited by the promise the iPhone represented that we shifted a significant portion of our attention to that device in its very early days. We launched the first iPhone ad units focused on the web and quickly added the capability to run ads in applications. Now with the addition of excellent devices from Palm, Nokia, RIM, and plethora of Android powered smartphones, we have all the preconditions necessary for what will be a tidal wave of mobile browsing and app usage. But let there be no mistake. Our business, and the mobile industry in general, owes Apple a debt of gratitude.

Carnival of the Mobilists #199 [Carnival of The Mobilists]

2009-11-09T15:32:32+00:00

This week the Carnival stops at the new-look (and new logo!) Mobileslate, where host Eric Chan takes the helm. The eclectic collection of posts includes a closer look at app stores (facts, figures and payment mechanisms) and a welcome deep-dive into key mobile market figures from our favorite pundits Chetan Sharma and Tomi Ahonen.

Vodafone AppStar UK Developer day [Betavine]

2009-11-09T14:50:56+00:00

Only a few days left before our Vodafone & Betavine AppStar developer day which is being held in London on November Friday 13th.

During the day you’ll get a crack course in how to build basic widgets from our best and brightest brains. We’ll give you the skills to create your own Widgets and how to unleash them on the world wide web.

After some brief presentations the rest of the session will be free for coding and creating new widgets. What will you design? A Widget to help make the perfect cup of tea? To save the world? Predict the future? Anything is possible…it’s all up to you!

Agenda for the day:

9:30am: Welcome and drinks!

10:00am: Presentations from Vodafone and Widget Developers

11.30am: Widget creation begins!

12.45pm: Buffet lunch and Betavine beers provided

4.30pm: Judging commences and winners announced!

Find out more and register here, http://appstaruk.eventbrite.com

Write Club 1 [Tom Hume]

2009-11-09T10:11:04+00:00

A couple of weeks back I wandered along to Write Club, a night that James and Ellen have kicked off, hosted by the mighty Skiff. The format intrigued me - we were to be shown a photograph, then given a very short amount of time to write a story based on it: 15 minutes, then 10, then 5, then 2. Over the last 6 months I've been really interested in extremely constrained creativity, and I've been routinely surprised by how much gets achieved by teams participating in the Mobile Mountains workshops I've been running... so the format was very appealing, and perhaps less intimidating than I might otherwise have found it.

I don't think I'd written any fiction - other than proposals and press releases - since I was 13 years old, and despite doing a fair bit of public speaking, I was pretty nervous about reading my work out. James very kindly prefixed the event with a stern warning that there were to be no apologies - a staple of spoken-word events, I understand - and I felt that the timeboxed format gave me a convenient excuse for any misgivings I might have over the quality of my work. Even with that, I can't claim to be happy with it - I found myself routinely heading in the same direction, overly clever-clever stories which spend too much effort trying to be twisty, shocking or rude. Ah well - it was interesting to observe myself heading down the same track again and again, even when I was trying not to, and encourages me to work on developing a bit of breadth.

I've posted my stories, together with the photos that inspired them, below; and I'm looking forward to the next event already :)

The Harpooning of the Synchronised Swimmer (15 minutes) "My dad and I, we've been doing it for years... and he did it with his dad. I'm making it sound like a tradition, but really I think it's just us, we've got a bit of a taste for it. I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed it.

We go out late at night; before the early morning fishermen slide their boats down the rough shingle and out into the water, we're already a few miles out. Dad knows where they go - says the sea tells him, affecting a slight cod-sailor lilt as he does so. Me, I think he's nuts but I don't like to say anything.

Sometimes we'll see none for three, four days, and then we'll hit a shoal, sliding in and out of the water, showing off to each other. It's a bit weird seeing them out in the cold green water under the smokey-grey sky: indoors is kinder for them, they have a much better life there.

My grandpa once caught eight of them, flapping away in eerie unison, still miming at one another 'n' slamming their pouty gobs open and shut as he harpooned them, one at a time, dragged them onto the wet deck and tenderly clubbed them unconscious for the ride home.

We get them back and pile them off the boat, make sure they're they'll all still compus, then it's down a back-alley at the docks to a man who knows a man who knows a man. He say takes them up to a lockup in Gatwick then it's abroad with 'em - I hear Moscow and Eastern Europe are popular these days. We don't get the best price, but it's better than a kick in the teeth; a pair will sell for more than double, a quad can make the month.

I saw the quad again, on the telly - 2008 I think, Beijing - only for a brief flash as I was flicking channels. I recognised the scar dad's barb in one of the four legs as they lifted out of the water as one, then I switched over for Hollyoaks.

Shitrag migration (10 minutes)

Morning breaks. Nothing on the mat.

"Fucking lazy fucking bastard paperboy, sacked off for the morning, no bloody respect" he grumbles, voice falling unsteadily from outrage to nothing as a month-old stain of ketchup catches his attention and derails his train of thought.

3 hours pass. Not even a bill, not even a flyer advertising window cleaners or new local sellers of pizza.

"Fucking bastard postie, fucking striking bollocks", he opines, to no-one in particular, and no-one nods quietly in agreement.

Bereft of any contact with the outside world but not really missing it all that much, he shuffles around the filthy flat. He can't find the takeaway menu - where'd she put it this time? So he cobbles together a filthy lunch, and for dessert repairs upstairs to enjoy a characteristically unpleasant 3pm bowel motion - relief followed by the crushing disappointment and then shame that only a hollow cardboard tube can bring.

As the sun crawls down the horizon and he settles down filthed in front of countdown, creases stretch out and thin triangular wings start to flex. Briefly darkening the view through the back window, the origami flock rises as one and heads 180 degrees off magnetic north for the long flight home.

Reluctant Ringmaster (5 minutes)

"Roll up, roll up, see the artist! Marvel at his brushmanship! Wonder at his innovative use of oils! Quake at the implied satire of his imagery!"

The top hat is unnecessarily OTT and slightly patronising. Plus it's dark and it's wet and it's late and I want to go inside and curl up with a ham sandwich, a jammy dodger, and Radio 1, but he says I'm not allowed to until it's done.

I bash out an especially unpleasant caricature of a rotund women who's brought her two children to see me. She shrieks, her eyes well up and they slope off, leaving 6 neat puddles of tears.

I get the night off.

Statue Pipe (2 minutes)

I been here 200 years, protected by Arts Council funding and a large umbrella-like structure which keeps the worst of the rain off and offers protection to the crowd which inevitably gathers beneath my chin in a storm. Penniless artists touch me up on occasion, keeping me fresh.

And then there's the museum next door, new plumbing, grade 1 listed over my grade 2, and I'm half-blinded by the new drain running through my left eye.

Google Acquires AdMob-what say you, mobile? [Ric Ferraro]

2009-11-09T10:09:41+00:00

AdMob announced today in a mailing to its customers that it was being acquired by Google for $750m.

"After our deal closes, AdMob will work with Google to accelerate the pace of innovation in mobile and do an even better job for you. We believe this deal will benefit our developer and publisher partners by:

Building even more powerful technology and tools to monetize mobile traffic.

Increasing the effectiveness of display advertising on mobile devices by leveraging Google sales team, infrastructure and relationships.

Improving the already high level of service and support we deliver to our publishers."

said Omar Hamoui, from AdMob in his email earlier today.

But what does this mean for mobile advertising?

Google's logic for making the deal is to ramp up its position in mobile advertising, seeing that growth in this ad market is likely to be higher than in traditional Pc-based web. It also can be interpreted as a sign that its own AdSense product for mobile was not sufficient in itself to give Google the edge in this market.

Where Google can really innovate is in the area of location based advertising on mobile, by stepping in the gap being left wide open by all the big mobile ad networks (who have capability to deploy LBS ads but lack the commitment from other members of the mobile ecosystem). It is no secret that Google has the best generic mapping product in the market (which was also skilfully deployed on mobile).

By combining its current capabilities with its web know-how and AdMob's mobile ad network, Google is now in a great position to transform the market and can deploy quickly, thanks to its Android platform.

The Mobile Premier Awards opens – and there’s an award for female entrepreneurs [MobileMonday London]

2009-11-08T22:34:53+00:00

You might be familiar with the Global Peer Awards that Rudy de Waele has been running in partnership with Mobile Monday for the last few years in Barcelona. Well, he’s now extended the concept to include more networks, including the Women in Mobile Data Association (see us on Facebook and LinkedIn) and has launched The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 and it is now open for entries.

The Mobile Premier Awards recognize the year’s best in Mobile Start-up Innovation and are the largest open, global start-up competition in the mobile industry. The awards are the point of reference in start-up premiers during the Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010 in Barcelona (yes, it’s nearly that time of year again) and are organized in collaboration with some of the main networks in the mobile industry.

We’re particularly excited about the award for female entrepreneurship… Anyway, more details about the whole shebang here. It’s free to enter and it seems to me to be exciting to be involved in it with both my Mobile Monday London hat and my Women in Mobile Data Association hat on. (Good job I like wearing hats eh).

The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 will include the following awards:

* MPA in Innovation - The best grassroots start-up innovation chosen by their peers in partnership with Mobile Monday. The Mobile Monday chapters will vote for their local most innovative start-up. An international jury of the most recognized mobile industry experts will select the 20 finalists from all the local chapter nominees to pitch at the event in Barcelona in front of investors, operators, media companies, peer entrepreneurs, and press and influential bloggers.

* MPA in Marketing - The best start-up in Mobile Marketing

* MPA in Entertainment - The best start-up in Mobile Entertainment in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum

* MPA in User Experience - The best start-up in Mobile User Experience in partnership with MEX.

* MPA in Social Change - The best start-up using mobile for social change in partnership with Mobile Active.org

* MPA in Female Entrepreneurship - The best woman-led mobile start-up in partnership with Women2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association

Participation to these awards is free and open to any start-up with a mobile angle. Go to www.mobilepremierawards.com and take your chance to walk the red carpet in Barcelona!

Technorati Tags: mobile,women,wimd,women in mobile data,mobile peer awards,mobile premier awards,global peer awards,mobile monday,mobile monday london,mobile world congress,barcelona,start-up,entrepreneurship

Found On The Mobile Web – 188 [Wap Review]

2009-11-08T19:05:10+00:00

Found on the Mobile Web is a weekly WAP Review feature listing newly added and updated sites on the YesWAP.com mobile portal and WapReview mobile site directory. With these latest additions the directory and portal now list 2007 mobile sites.

Sports

FUEL TV m.fueltv.com Fuel is an extreme sports channel from the Fox television network in the US. Fuel's mobile site has skateboarding, snowboarding, motocross, surfing, BMX and FMX. news and photos. Source Oh! Mobile Directory
Content: Usability:

News

Current TV m.current.com Mobile Website of Current TV, the television news and entertainment channel started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. A big (170 KB) site best suted to advanced devices, it has news, technology, environmental, movie. music and comedy sections. Many items include iPhone/Android formatted (mp4 480x320, 3MB) videos. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory
Content: Usability:

Technology/Internet

W3C cheatsheet www.w3.org/2009/cheatsheet/ For web developers and designers, this mobile friendly reference from the W3C offers best practices lists for mobile, accessibility, internationalization and typography plus a searchable HTML, CSS, SVG, XPath property, element, attribute and function reference. It's a large (300+ KB) site and works best on advanced devices with JavaScript support. Source: W3C Blog
Content: Usability:

Technology/Internet

Webdesigner Depot m.webdesignerdepot.com One of the top online Web design sites, Web Designer Depot offers design tips and tutorials and design analyses of leading online sites. The attractive mobile view was created with Mobify.
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Business/Quotes & Trading

SelftradeUK www.selftrade.co.uk/m/ Selftrade is a large UK stock broker. The mobile site provides stock and currency quotes, market trends and news, watch lists and online trading. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory
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Business/News

Breaking Travel News breakingtravelnews.mobi/ Mobile resource center for travel industry executives. Market intelligence, trend analysis, breaking news and interviews. Source Oh! Mobile Directory
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News/US Local by State/Virginia - Wyoming

Today's TMJ4 www.todaystmj4.com/mobile This text only mobile site from Milwaukee, Wisconsin's NBC television affiliate WTMJ, Channel, 4 has local and national news stories. Source: Tappity
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Mail-IM-Talk-PIM/Productivity and PIM

springpad springpadit.com/m/ Springpad is an online organizer app based on linked notepads called "Springpads". Each Springpad can contain notes, recipes, todo lists and calendar events. Springpads can be linked to other Springpads and can be shared with other Springpad users. Source Tappity
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Travel-Transit/Destination Guides

Scenic Rim Tourism scenicrimtourism.org.au/mobile/ Tourist information for Australia's Boonah - "The Heart of the Scenic Rim", a foothills area noted for its natural beauty and its wines. Accommodation, attractions, dinning and winery listings with maps, photos and phone numbers which sadly are not click to call. Source Mobility.mobi
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Sports/Rugby

Player23 player23.mobi Rugby news, results, live scores and schedules. Premium content including videos, wallpapers and memorabilia for sale. Source: Mobility.mobi
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Jonathan Ive's video clip on "getting design out of the way." [Open Gardens]

2009-11-07T21:34:59+00:00

loved it!

What future for the mobile phone in a multi-platform world? [Open Gardens]

2009-11-07T21:01:08+00:00

Marek Pawlowski, who created the Mobile User Experience conference asked me my views on : What future for the mobile phone in a multi-platform world? (which is also the theme of the MEX conference this year)

Here are my views:

There was once a notion of the mobile device as a remote control to our life.

Initially, that notion was fanciful .. but today it may be closer than we think ..

As mobile networks become more open - they will embrace the opportunities from non phone devices.

Thus, the phone (if we may call it that) will embrace functionality from other devices. This is already happening.

But more importantly, the idea of a 'connection' will be decoupled from the person. People already have more than one phones in many cases .. but devices will also be network enabled. This makes a big difference.

So, what technologies/initiatives are making this possible in the near future(three to five years)?

If we get that right - then we can indeed predict the role of the mobile device in the multiplatform world

Here are my bets

a) The Cloud - which unifies the Web, Mobile and social network domains

b) The Internet of things enabled through the Cloud / mobile device: The phone becomes a magic wand to the cloud services: Mobile sensor based interface to the cloud to jump start the Internet of things ..

c) DLNA

d) Smart Grids which provide a 'use case' for ubiquitous computing. I am doing some research in this space if you are interested

e) LTE - Why LTE is needed next year

f) Femtocells and homegateways

Some notes .. I believe that TV(as it is currently) will NOT adapt fast enough .. see I don't need two government funded TV channels - I need a wikipedia button on my Sky remote .. and these developments will be good for the Operator as their network gets deployed into more areas It will also be good for device makers ..

The word 'mobile phone' will have no meaning and will be used only as a fallback from the old days - just the the word 'computer' is used today i.e. at one time the primary function of the computer was to 'compute' today .. we take that function for granted ..

Comments welcome!

Heroes of the Mobile Screen event [Open Gardens]

2009-11-07T20:00:24+00:00

Our friend Helen Keegan is creating an interesting event called Heroes of the Mobile Screen in London. It's unique feature is that it also brings (alongwith the rest of the industry) secondary school pupils, college students and other members of the same generation together in one room. With speakers like JP Rangaswami, Daniel Appelquist, Doug Richards, Peggy Ann Salz and others, this should be an interesting event. You can see more at Heroes of the Mobile Screen

The IMS One Voice Profile - Some Thoughts [Martin]

2009-11-06T19:58:12+00:00

There we go, lots of people have asked me in the past few days about my opinion on the publication of the IMS One Voice Profile to bring voice services to LTE. The spec, created by AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung and Sony Ericsson is available here.

There's a strong political and a technical side to this, so let's look at them separately.

The Politics

One of the main problems is that there is no clear strategy of how to deliver voice over LTE, the main cash cow of mobile network operators. As a result, several solutions have been suggested and specified, each with advantages and drawbacks.

As the impressive list of supporters shows, many parties hope and believe that the IP Multimedia Subsystem will do the job. Unfortunately, the IMS is suffering from its own complexity and the ambition of the companies working on it to evolve pure voice to a multimedia offering. Due to the complexity, however, little to nothing has so far ended up in the hands of consumers. The industry has tried to narrow their focus a bit by specifying service profiles such as MMTel and Rich Communication Suite version 1 and version 2 but there are no indications that this has changed this situation.

With the IMS One Voice Profile, many of the IMS supporters have now agreed to throw even more of the complexity overboard and concentrate on voice only. And that's the astonishing political side of this document to me. No longer are the companies dreaming their multimedia dream, they seem to have come to realize that they need to focus on voice and make this work first. An impossible suggestion only a short time ago. But the pressure seems to be mounting.

The Technical Side

When looking at the spec it seems to be likely that most IMS infrastructure vendors can already do the signaling exchanges described in the document and client software for mobile devices should also be complying either already or shortly. So from a technical point of view this spec doesn't change the status quo a great deal. Integrating this into a final solution is going to be the first tricky thing where the industry has failed over many years. Unfortunately the spec doesn't help with this issue.

The second tricky thing is the handover to a 2G or 3G circuit switched channel once running out of LTE coverage. Two features are required for this. The first is Single Radio Voice Call Continuity, a mostly radio network centric feature to coordinate the handover process from packet to circuit with devices that can only communicate with one radio access technology at a time. In addition, the IMS needs to interact with the circuit switched Mobile Switching Center (MSC). Although not mentioned in the 'One Voice' profile, I assume the IMS Centralized Services feature is used for that. If you want to see something really complicated, go have a look.

Some might argue that handovers to a CS channel are not required at first but I think without it, users will simply not accept the service as it offers few benefits over VoIP services offered by Internet companies. In fact, I think handover to CS is the biggest asset operators have to compete with Internet companies in the voice domain!

Final Thoughts

Personally, I think it's a good idea to concentrate IMS implementation activities on the most important service, VOICE! I have to wonder a bit, however, why to go through all this complexity for voice only, as that can be had for LTE much cheaper, much simpler and likely also much faster with other approaches such as Volga. Many see Volga as an ugly duckling, dragging along 'legacy' equipment. But with this 'legacy' equipment (the MSC) being on an IP evolution path as well, I don't quite see it this way.

So, I wish the companies speaking in 'One Voice' a lot of luck (I like the naming twist!) because no matter which approach will prevail in the end, we need voice services for LTE with proper CS interworking and we need it sooner than later!

And one more thought: I can imagine, and I actually think it's quite likely, that there will be more than a single solution for Voice over LTE deployed in the future. Competition often helps to speed things up. The good news is, it should be fairly transparent for the user as interoperability is ensured via the 'legacy equipment'.