Friday, November 24, 2006

I went into the woods last night

Well, to be more precise, I didn't go wandering off into a forest in the dead of night. I went to the launch of the Into the Woods collection at the Digital Wellbeing Labs in the fabulous Bluebird store on the Kings Road with Lesley from Mixipix. I saw all kinds of things from USB memory sticks made from twigs, a visual thesaurus, wooden digital clocks, both standard and cuckoo clock stylee, virtual graffiti, a wooden robot vacuum cleaner and my favourite, the wooden creature speaker (pictured - the rose is optional!).

If you get chance, do go along and see the collection (and the shop at Bluebird is well worth a visit anyway. It's a fascinating mix of art meets digital meets lifestyle and well worth a look. Of course, you can also browse and buy online. Well done to Priya and her team for organising.

QR codes - A UK first from Emap's Kerrang?

It looks like Emap is trialling QR codes in Kerrang, one of its popular music magazines. I thought I'd give it a go and see what the download process is like as I don't have a copy of Kerrang handy. And actually, it's pretty fast and smooth. All good so far from Kaywa the tech company behind it.

At the same time as downloading, the wapsite gave me the option of entering a 'mobile profile' so I thought, why not? Anyway, that started out well and turned out to be very painful. It's a tiny screen with a tiny font so difficult to see. That aside, it was difficult navigating between check boxes (I couldn't tell where I was on the page) and then it kept asking me for the same information over and over again and then it botched what I'd already put in there and next thing I know my password is my family name and my mobile number is my country so I give up and escape. Still, I've got the application so that's ok I suppose.

Next, I try out the system from the Kaywa website and manage to get to google search and also download a free wallpaper... and it's *really* fast.

But there's a but. To use the system, you have to remember you have the application, find it buried somewhere amongst all the other stuff on your phone, open it, open the camera shutter (I have a Nokia N70), point the camera and then it reads it automatically. It would make a WORLD of difference if it operated like Shozu and was integrated into the camera. So as soon as you take a photo as normal, it picks up what it's looking at and connects to the app accordingly. Until that happens, it's going to be very difficult to get any kind of traction or critical mass as you're fundamentally trying to change behaviour and that either takes time or money or both.

Flickr goes mobile [again]

I use flickr *a lot*, not least because of the fantastically useful Shozu which integrates seamlessly with it. Moblog UK, when are you gonna get shozu'd? However, until now, I haven't been able to use flickr properly on my mobile phone as I have a yahoo login and not a flickr one (the yahoo one is newer and I changed it as per flickr's recommendations when yahoo took them over). It seems that has now all changed and you can use all functionality on flickr from your mobile. Just go to http://m.flickr.com and take it from there.

According to flickr, these are the top cameraphones used to upload pictures to the site.

Popular Cameraphones

% of members

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Casino Royale does mobile content via bluetooth

So I come out of the cinema on Saturday night having seen the fabulous Casino Royale with Sony's amazing product placement. I'm waiting for my pal who's in the ladies and spy this Hypertag system attached to the postcard stand in the upstairs lounge area offering free Casino Royale mobile content. Well, I'm definitely into Daniel Craig as James Bond now so thought I'd give it a go to see what I'd get... they give you step by step instructions

Step 1. Turn on bluetooth or infra-red
Step 2. Change your phone's name to Bond
Step 3. Point your phone at the box and wait for up to a minute to receive a message
Step 4. Get content.

Well, I actually know where my bluetooth is and even though it's a bit of a pain to change my phone name, I do it. I point my phone at the box. I wait for a bit and I get a message saying 'receive free Casino Royale content' or similar. I click yes to accept. The message disappears. This happens about 5 or 6 times before I give up. And I'm on a Nokia N70 and happily share bluetooth files between my pc and my phone and other phones for that matter. So I really don't understand why it's not working. And if it's not working, how many others is it not working for.

And it's not even been up very long because the film's only been out for a few days. And I didn't see anyone else giving it a go so I don't think the Hypertag system was clogged up with requests at the same time that I was trying...

Ho hum. I really want to believe that there is a future in bluetooth marketing but experiences like these make me feel that we're still some way away from it. Sod's law that I'm the one who found the dodgy system (I seem to *always* be the one to find a bug in a mobile campaign) or is this the general consumer experience for current versions of bluetooth content delivery?

What people want from their phones part 2 - voting by text

More from the BBC today about text voting (although I can't find the story on their website - I got it via email). They've just commissioned a survey and found out that voting by mobile in a general election would be more popular than voting on TV shows like Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity, X Factor (which is probably the biggest of the lot attracting more than 20m text votes in a series). I've talked about participation TV here before.

The results: Apparently 34% of UK adults who own a mobile phone, 34% said they'd be interested in voting by text in a general election, rising to 45% amongst the 25 to 34s. And in the same group, 30% of them currently on reality TV shows like Big Brother, Celebrity Come Dancing, X Factor et al. How things have moved on since this survey in 2002 where it was felt that text voting trivialised the process.

Will it happen? Text voting is currently being evaluated by the UK Government as part of its e-democracy proposals to reform voting in public ballots. But does that fact that people want this and that we have the technology mean we will get text voting in the short-term? I'd love to think that we would but, although not impossible, it would be incredibly complex to co-ordinate data securely to facilitate this, coupled with the fact that fraud is a problem too. For those who really want to fix the system, would they just steal people's phones, or hijack them, and claim their text vote instead? I don't know, maybe that's far-fetched, but the task required for m-democracy is not to be underestimated. After all, we're talking about dealing with millions of people here, 100s of phone types and operating systems yada yada yada.

Engaging young people. Interestingly, the BBC is using text voting to engage children in politics via their newsround TV programme which I think is brilliant. A recent example can be found here where they asked children if they'd like David Cameron or Gordon Brown to be Prime Minister.

Survey details. This latest BBC survey was gathered from 2,000 face to face interviews between 12 October and 1st November amongst UK adults (18+) and they found that mobile owners split into three distinct groups - light, medium and heavy users (not exactly rocket science, but useful to see the breakdown nevertheless).

Heavy users: Mostly 18 to 34s. They use 6 or more functions on their mobile device, with SMS/text messaging, taking photos, playing games, ringtones and browsing wapsites amongst the most popular activities.

Medium users: Use 2 or 3 functions - primarily calling, texting and taking photos.

Light users: Make up the largest group - 62% with more than half of those in the over 45s. And they just use their phone for voice and text (still, it's good to see text in there even with the light users although I can't imagine they use it much).

More on stats. If these stats look interesting to you, and they do to me, then you might want to head over to Mobhappy and check out these posts [1] [2]. I'm in the heavy user category, clearly, as are about a third of my friends, the rest of them falling into medium users. But if the largest group are light users, how do we migrate these people up the chain to become medium and then heavy users? The handsets *are* out there. So why isn't the usage? Is it just a question of time, or have we (the industry) made some fundamental mistakes in communicating what this mobile thing is all about?

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Quote of the day

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it"
Henry David Thoreau. More quotes from Mr Thoreau on wikiquote.

Best stay busy then...

Thanks to Marcus for sharing.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Want to know what people want from a 3G phone?

Then check out the BBC Forum on the topic here. It's a window into the minds of consumers, many of whom loathe mobile phones (and as such, more likely to be vociferous on a forum like that). It's well worth a read though.

There's another one here all about how we'll be consuming TV in the future. Also worth a look if you're interested in TV - mobile or otherwise. And judging by my recent traffic, mobile TV is a hot topic...

Carnival of the mobilists #54 is up at Golden Swamp

And Judy Breck's done a fine job of collating this weeks best of writing on mobile in the blogosphere. And I'm very happy to say that Musings of a Mobile Marketer gets a mention too for one of my recent posts on Mobile TV.

Go check out Judy's Carnival.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Nice job for a digital marketing manager going at MTV

I just spotted this job posting on Angel Gambino's blog describing a job opening for an experienced cross-platform digital marketing manager in London and Canada. Deadline for applications is November 22nd so you don't have long to apply if you're interested. Find out more here. I'm not entirely sure how you apply for the role as I can't see it on MTV's job noticeboard. I guess if you contact their human resources team, they'll tell you how.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

What does x-series mean for Mobile TV?

There was a rumour a few days ago about Three being up for sale which seems to have been scotched by this announcement. Three is first-mover with a consumer mobile broadband offering called x-series with a flat monthly fee. Services include Skype (although Carlo points out that it's not *actually* Skype on your phone), instant messaging (I wonder how they'll manage mass 'always on' as I understand the network capacity can't cope if too many are online all at the same time - perhaps someone technical can clarify that for me?), your PC where you are using Orb (although you can use Soonr or whatever if you have broadband) and viewing your home television wherever you are by incorporating slingbox. It sounds kinda like T-Mobile's web and walk product (which I use happily as it alleviates billshock) except that in the small print fair usage currently excludes VOIP and TV.

So what's the impact for Mobile TV then? There's lots of talk in the industry that 'made for mobile' is important due to the size of the screen, technology limitations, context of usage etc. However if streaming your home TV (sky, NTL, freeview or whatever) via slingbox is a 'good enough' experience that could negate the need for mobile TV per se as customers will have enough choice - certainly in the short term, and it doesn't cost them any extra assuming they're on an x-series account and they have already forked out for or don't mind forking out for a fancy slingbox.

Thoughts?

Sponge 1 Neomedia 0

Some of you may be aware by now that Neomedia has sold Sponge back to its founders for US$250k (official press release). The official line is that Neomedia wants to focus on its qode product (which is a QR code technology recently used in the One Water campaign). However, reading between the lines, it seems that Neomedia's share price has plunged leaving them unable to fulfil their contractual (and financial) obligations to complete the Sponge acquisition deal. Neomedia retains a 7.5% stake and Sponge's founder shareholders keep just over US$6m of the original purchase price. Seems to me that they've played a blinder and that the picture of a champagne bottle on their official news page is very telling ;)

Alex Meisl, founder and CEO of Sponge says, "Sponge is going from strength to strength - business has doubled since the beginning of the year in both the media and agency space." He continues, "We have also grown the team whilst remaining wedded to our belief of great products and great service." (That's good advice to *any* business IMHO)

The company will continue to be run by the existing management team.

Live Text Voting in Brighton

at the Brighton and Hove Web Awards at Fabrica courtesy of the Future Platforms team. Check out the video here.

Mega Christmas Bash 9th December

Ok, so I'm a bit late writing about this - what with being away in Budapest and busy with clients. Anyway, excuses to one side...

There's going to be a big Christmas Party being hosted by BBC Backstage at The Cuban Bar on Saturday 9th December in conjunction with Swedish Beers, London Girl Geekdinners, Geekdinners, London Perlmongers, London Webstandards Group, London Ruby User Group, Open Rights Group, London 2.0 , Mobile Mondays and London SEO.

It's already over-subscribed (we've got over 500 names so far) however, having run many a networking event, there is inevitably a drop-out rate so it's worth putting your name on the waiting list. I also think that some folks will come early and leave early and some will come along later and leave at closing time (1am). So we should be able to accommodate everyone with a bit of luck. For insurance purposes, I believe the venue needs a list of all names in advance so get your name on the list sooner rather than later.

Oh and if you're interested in sponsoring some drinks and or food at the event, please get in touch.

Mobile Services Christmas Guide

SmartTrust, the mobile device management company is putting together a guide to setting up your new phone in time for Christmas. As part of this guide, they'd like to include examples of different services that users can subscribe to as they initially configure their phone for use - be that music, ringtones, wallpapers, animations, games, voicemail, video, tv or whatever.

So, if you have an interesting consumer mobile service or application that you'd like to include then please let Jessica know by email at Noiseworks PR and include a user-friendly paragraph about the service, how to subscribe, and a phone number, website and/or wapsite (and if you have a mobile service you really *should* have a wapsite you know), where customers can go for more information. I'd also add in any costs (one-off, subscription or otherwise) for using the service. But that's my customer service hat going on as there's way too much billshock going on for my liking. But you'll have to be quick as the deadline is 23rd November. They can't guarantee that you will be included but will try to include as many as possible.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Interested in media and technology?

Yes? Then you might well be interested in Library House's forthcoming conference MediaTech 2.006 on 30th November at the wonderful Imax theatre. It promises to be a day where the innovators, the disruptors, the investors and the corporate players get together to talk about who will win and lose in tomorrow's world where media and technology collide. There are some great speakers lined up including fellow mobilist Russell Buckley of Admob. And by the end of the day, you'll hopefully have at least discussed, if not found the answers to
  • Which companies walk the walk in the collision of technology and media
  • Who is creating the future, creating value and how
  • What emerging business models are most likely to succeed (you might want to check out my post here on mobile business models)
  • How are upstart companies trying to exploit the industry disruption (I wonder if they are trying to exploit, or if that's just a by-product of being innovative and forward thinking?)
  • Where are investors, pioneers and incumbents engaging in partnership to everyone's advantage?
So quite a lot to address then in one day.

Library House is walking the talk, as they say, by inviting a guest panel of bloggers (me included) to get involved with the event. We've been asked to stir up a bit of a debate before and after the event with a view to feeding the panels with questions around what people out there regard as the issues of the day. So do comment here or drop me a line with your thoughts and I'll happily add them to the mix. Hot topics in my circle currently seem to be mobile TV, virtual reality, social media and where advertising fits in (or not) into this space. I'm also feeling some tension between the players in the web world and the mobile world but more on that another time.

We'll also be available during breaks to give delegates the opportunity to pitch ideas to us which we might just write about or chat about later in the wrap-up panel. It's a bit experimental, but that's ok. I enjoy improvisation! And then of course there's drinks and canapes afterwards.

And all this for a bargain £395 (+ VAT) including lunch, refreshments and the evening networking.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Carnival of the Mobilists update

I've been a bit lax in letting you know about each week's carnival of the mobilists so this is a bit of a catch up post.

So Carnival number 51 is at Tarek Speaks Mobile, 52 is at All About Symbian and 53 is at Enrique Ortiz's blog. Next week's is being edited by Judy Breck at Golden Swamp and links to every previous Carnival and the schedule for upcoming editions is over at mobili.st

If you have written an article about something mobile related, then please feel free to enter your article to the Carnival. You don't need a special invitation. FAQs and how to enter here.

Is it just a rumour..

..or will we hear tomorrow that 3 is exiting the UK? And if 3 *is* exiting the UK, what impact will that have on our early-stage mobile media industry? Looks like Vodafone could be interested in buying the assets (customers). More here too.

Watch this space as they say...

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Nokia's Mobile TV Report just out

Following on from my post yesterday about Respond Mobile's launch of Rhythm TV, I spied a new report from Nokia (links to download here) about mobile TV and advertising which should make interesting reading for anyone remotely interested in this area.

Dr Shani Orgad from LSE (author of the report) believes that personalisation and interactivity (including user generated content or UGC) will be the drivers of Mobile TV and that it will lead to a more personal and private consumption of TV than current broadcast models. So this bodes very well for adult and erotic content on mobile;)

I'm not sure what the impact will be for advertisers. As Dr Orgad suggests, advertisers will have to think outside the box and be more subtle in their approach (which is my advice for pretty much any mobile campign). Mobile anything is about snacking and a few seconds can feel like an inordinately long time on a mobile phone. Don't ask me why, but maybe it's to do with the small screen and the context in which you're using the device - i.e. out and about and on the move rather than slumped on your sofa?

So I'm not sure how much tolerance there wil be to a 5 to 7 second advert, or indeed, how much an advertiser can get across in that minute amount of time. She also goes on to say that you need to create affinity between the consumer and the product. So that suggests contextual targeting, brand and relationship building and interactivity or as I wrote in a previous post "really understanding your consumers and your clients and matching them well together".

And what will mobile interactive TV be like? Does that go beyond UGC? Let's hope it's better than the red button stuff we have at the moment in the UK which is as slow as a tortoise pulling a fork lift truck (well at least on my tellybox it is.)

Best get your thinking cap on Mr Advertiser.

Do you like music?

Do you have or could you develop an eclectic taste in music? Then TunA theDay could be for you. It's a free, interactive, on-line community who love music and enjoy new musical experiences and probably don't take themselves too seriously. Oh, and it's run by my mate Ade. He's got big plans for the new year but in the mean time, you get an email every day with a bit of blurb, links to stuff and a link to Ade's myspace page (go on, add yourself as a friend) where you can hear the TunA the Day which could be anything from rock, jazz, soul, funk, indie to world or whatever music from today or yesteryear. It's all legal and above board too.

Interested? Then sign up for your daily email by sending an email to Big Ade tuna [at] hwandh [dot] co [dot] uk

You won't get spammed (that's just not Ade's stylee), you'll get to hear something interesting every day and you'll be the first to hear about new TunA when it arrives next year.

Mention my name in your sign up email so he knows how you heard about him. And don't forget to wish Ade a Happy Birthday today too. He's a *lot* older than me ;)

Monday, November 13, 2006

Double whammy

With Spinvox's Christina Domecq winning 'young entrepreneur of the year' award and Sarah McVittie collecting 82ask's award for Best use of technology at the Startups.co.uk Annual awards. It's a double whammy as not only as these both mobile companies, they're both headed up by women. Way to go girls!

If you're interested in the kinds of questions that 82ask receives and answers, then check out their new book "Do Sheep Shrink in the Rain". A perfect stocking-filler for Christmas (which scarily is only a few weeks away... where does the time go?!)

Videogaming and ARG

Mike Butcher has just contributed to the New Statesman on a series of articles about video games and alternate reality games. If you've been reading my bits and pieces about Second Life and virtual living, then it's well worth downloading the whole supplement as it's a really good read.

Respond Mobile launches made-for-mobile TV platform

We all know that, like it or not, online adult "erotic" content and services led to a lot of innovation and take-up of web services more generally. The same, it seems to me, is happening in mobile too. I think it's safe to say that men are more likely to upgrade their handsets and contracts to get adult mobile TV than women would for a QVC mobile shopping style channel or even a reality TV channel. We're just not *that* bothered to upgrade on the whole.

The good thing about adult mobile TV s is that it will accelerate acceptance and use of mobile TV across the board as the handsets and services will be out there which will help the industry as a whole. And let's face it, BT has been making its money for years from adult chatline services to it's a bit late to be anti this now. Like it or not, sex sells.

So as part of this mobile TV innovation, the team at Respond Mobile has launched the world's first dedicated multi-channel mobile TV delivery platform, Rhythm TV. The launch stations include 100% Babes and XXX TV, magazine style Candy Lounge, erotic dancing at Rhythm TV with other big names to be announced soon.

The Rhythm TV service includes some unique features suited to adult mobile TV such as fast forward, rewind and pause. Rhythm TV also allows viewers to restart the channel they were watching at the same place next time they view. The service also plays out in landscape mode on high end phones therefore utilising the full screen area giving and enhanced mobile TV experience. I think these features will be required on *any* mobile TV service, and not just adult.

As I'm not a mobile TV viewer (yet although I don't think it will be long before I am), I don't know how this functionality compares with the likes of Rok, Virgin Lobster, Sky or Vodafone. So if you *do* know, then please feel free to comment.

Mobile TV has great potential because you're not asking the customer to change their fundamental behaviour. If there's a button on the phone that says 'TV' and you press it and you can watch TV, then it's a whole lot easier than browsing wap, uploading/downloading applications, setting up shared messaging services and backing up your data. It's a very simple proposition which we all know and understand. I think it's just a question of timing and we always overestimate the change that will happen in 2 years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10 (with thanks to Bill Gates for the quote).

Update Tues 14 November 2006:
Nokia's just released a report on Mobile TV and its impact on consumers and advertisers which I've written about here.

Update Mon 20 November 2006: Good discussion on the impact of x-series on Mobile TV here.

Catch up on what's been happening in mobile...

World Telemedia in Budapest was fun. Didn't see much of the city but I did meet a lot of people, enjoyed a few drinks and presented a session on the Friday morning midst an audience of tired and hungover mobilists.

Whilst I was there, I didn't really have time to do email so I've come back to an inbox full of stuff which I'm just wading through now. So here are some quick links and excerpts to keep you going.
  • Experimental mobile-mentary is in production courtesy of film-maker Max Schleser. He's exploring Japanese cities through the lens of a mobile phone. With 30 one to three minute clips, he hopes these will be translated to the silver screen in 2007. Sneak previews will be presented at the Design Fiesta in Tokyo. Phase 2 of the project will see more use of user generated content. Watch this space...
  • Tocmags launches in the UK after a successful beta trial. Anyone can build a tocmag just by using their simple interface and adding pictures and text. During the trial, examples of use included several virtual business cards, travellers' logbooks (full of photos, video and commentary to send to friends and family at home), 'private' Tocmags exchanged between couples and even a weekly church newsletter. Via Brand Republic
  • According to IG Trend Central you may soon hear people saying "VM me" rather than "IM me". Veeker is a free video messaging service that enables you to shoot mobi-video and instantly share it with friends. Videos are sent directly to the Veeker site, where, similar to Flickr, the creator can opt to keep it private or to share with the Veeker community. The “Veeks” or “video peeks” can also be viewed in other blogging and social networking sites that accept their code
  • Similar to Dodgeball, Jaiku allows users to "connect with the people you care about". Users can share their real-time locations and view the presence streams of their friends: basically, the service enables users to know their friends’ whereabouts at all times and vice versa, so long as everyone participates and has a Nokia Series 60 phone. Sounds a bit like Buddyping to me.

[Note to self, must try these things out and review them properly...]

I'm an advocating inventor

well, according to PersonalDNA that is. I think the results are definitely consistent with how I'm feeling about myself right now.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Is "interestingness" patentable?

I'm in a mad rush to get to Budapest today but I just spotted this over at Alfie's blog and felt it was worth mentioning.

If you're a flickr regular (like me and Tom and Devi and Lloyd) then you'll know all about the different ranking systems flickr has to rate your photos and one ofthem is interestingness which, I'm guessing, is an algorithm based on number of views vs number/range/content of tags vs volume/content of comments.

Alfie has spotted that flickr is applying for a patent based on this 'interestingness' and wonders if it's the concept of 'interestingness' that's being patented or the algorithm. It seems to him, and I concur, that many social networking sites already use similar methodology to rank and order content and members within their community. So is it really patentable?

Thoughts?

I've been pobbed - before and after

CIMG0566


I've been pobbed

by Rowetta (yes she of the first X Factor series and backing singer to the Happy Mondays). She was ably supervised by Ben Cooke who is hairdresser to Victoria and David Beckham and invented the 'pob' which Posh now sports having had her hair extensions chopped off. Steve Strange was also in the session doing a girl called Latoya's hair into a pob.

I'm very pleased to say that not only was everyone lovely (we also met Sarah Cawood, Lee Stafford, Richard Fairbrass, Holly Aird, Janet Ginnings and Caprice) but Rowetta also did a fantastic job with the haircut and Ben finished it off with a super duper blowdry.

I came out of the beeb last night and went straight to my session at the Google offices for MoMo London to talk about top 10 trends in mobile marketing (which I'll write up when I have more time). I did manage to send some friends the odd MMS message and I shozu'd a few pix up to flickr as well.

And all this for Celebrity Scissorhands in aid of Children in Need. Go donate :)

Sunday, November 05, 2006

What's happening mobile-wise in Korea?

If you want to know the answer, then you could do worse than going to the BBC and having a look at the programme and accompanying article from the BBC on uber-fast mobile data speeds and what you might use them for. This includes quite a bit about mobile TV and Wibro so if either of those are your bag, it's definitely worth a look. I'm not sure how long it will be up there, so catch it whilst it's still live.

Are you a digital pioneer?

Unfortunately, I'm too old to qualify but this looks like a great opportunity for someone to be sponsored to go to Hong Kong and be mentored along the way to grow and develop their entrepreneurial skills and their business/es courtesy of the British Council Digital Pioneers programme. If you're aged between 21 and 35 and are resident in the UK or Hong Kong, then why not see if you're eligible to apply?

Friday, November 03, 2006

Oh dear, what *have* I let myself in for

For some inexplicable reason, I thought it would be a good idea to apply for a free haircut in support of Children in Need. All good so far. Except, I've just seen the list of celebrities who'll be the cutters. And it's all being filmed for broadcast pretty much straight away on BBC3. And what's more, my appointment is on Monday, before my stint at MoMo London. So if I turn up wearing a hat, you'll know why! Maybe I'll be lucky and I'll be a demonstration client with Lee Stafford or one of his experts doing my hair to show how it's done... I live in hope...

Before and after photos may well be censored ;)

Thursday, November 02, 2006

It's going to be a busy week next week

There's a lot on in mobile world next week. First off, there's November's Mobile Monday event at Google's offices in London where we'll be talking about trends in mobile and I'm on a panel of fellow mobilists, Tom Hume from Future Platforms, Ajit Jaokar and Paul Goode from m:metrics. If you're not already on the list, I doubt you'll get in as it's over subscribed. However, I'm sure someone will be blogging about it and I expect some of it will be podcast too.

If it's statistics you're after, then I recommend you sign up for one of the m:metrics web briefings next week. They're doing two on consumption of mobile content - one on Monday focusing on the EU and one on Tuesday focusing on the USA. It's free to sign up.

Then Wednesday, I'm hotfooting it to Budapest (I think it will be chilly if London weather is anything to go by) to World Telemedia where I'm going to be talking on Friday about mobile and print media.

Oh, and in between, I have the day job to do!