Heroes of Mobile Day: London Edition 17 Oct

Following on from the great success that was Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival in Barcelona earlier this year, we’ve decided to do some smaller scale events starting in London to keep the buzz going and help build up to the main event in Barcelona next February.

With that in mind, we have three discussion panel sessions happening at Mozilla HQ on St Martin’s Lane on Wednesday 17th October. All being well, these will be live webcast, but if you’re in London, you can join the audience as well and participate in a bit of networking at the same time. Each session will run for about 45 minutes with some time for refreshments before and after. You’re welcome to come to one, two or all three sessions, as you wish. They’re free to attend but we are limited in space as we want to keep the atmosphere intimate and to encourage discussion and questions from the audience.

State of the Mobile Nation

This session is sponsored by our friends at Hotwire PR and chaired by Russell Buckley. The discussion will be a review of where we are and where we’re going in the mobile industry and what that might mean for your business. More details and RSVP here. Doors open at 09.30 for a 10.00 start.

Mobile Advertising Will Eat Itself

This session will also be chaired by Russell Buckley and look at the latest innovations (or not) in the world of mobile advertising. More details and RSVP here. Doors open at 11.00 for a prompt 11.15 start.

 

(Mobile) Money Makes the World Go Around

This session will be chaired by Tim Green and will take a look at the world of mobile money, from payments to mobile wallets to the future (if any) for NFC and more. Details and RSVP here. Doors open at 12.30 for a prompt 13:15 start.

We will be finished by around 14:00 but you’re welcome to stay for further networking and refreshments. There is free Wi-Fi at Mozilla Space London and you’re welcome to stay to do some work if you wish.

About our sponsors

Hotwire is an integrated PR and communications agency. Founded in 2000, the agency spans a number of industries including telecoms, media, marketing, consumer, technology, financial services and cleantech. Quickly becoming a global offering, Hotwire has offices in the UK, across Europe, Australia and the US. Suffice to say, the team are passionate about all things mobile and will be on hand to chew the fat with you.

Mozilla Spaces are open working environments where Mozillians can hack,code, design, research, create, engage and contribute to building a brighter future for the web and they are hosting this session. You may be familiar with Mozilla's brilliant Firefox browser for desktop and mobile and more recently, they announced their Firefox OS for mobile. 

And there’s more… Swedish Beers is 11 years young and we’re celebrating!

To round off the day, we’ll be celebrating Swedish Beers’ 11th Birthday Party at The Nordic Bar from 18.30 with our friends from Millennial Media, LoopMe Media, Yuilop and Inspiring Interns. Again, free to attend. No formalities, no presentations, just good company, good chat and some free drinks (beer, wine and soft drinks a-plenty courtesy of our sponsors). More details here.

Meffys Awards now Open for Entries

Stop Press: Closing date extended to Friday 6 May at 5pm.

Doing something interesting in mobile apps and services? Got a cracking case study in mobile marketing? Innovating in mobile content? Then you should consider entering this year’s Meffys Awards which are now open for entries. These are one of the most prestigious global mobile awards and are definitely worth consideration.

This year’s Meffys categories span the entire mobile content & commerce ecosystem. Now in its 8th year, the Meffys honour achievements across mobile content and commerce and recognise the best innovation around the globe. Entries are judges by expert panels of leading journalists, analysts, academics and VCs. The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner attended by the industry’s most influential players on 7^th July at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London’s famous Covent Garden.

Companies wishing to enter should visit: www.meffys.com and submit their entries by 26^th April 2011.

For highlights from the 2010 awards ceremony and a list of 2010 winners, please visit: http://www.meffys.com/about/2010-highlights

Entering the 2011 Meffys

MEF will be accepting entries for the 2011 Meffys from today. Companies interested in entering the awards or nominating a candidate for the Outstanding Contribution Awards should go to the Meffys website at www.meffys.com for full details.

Entry prices for 2011 are as follows: £350 per entry; £150 for MEF Members. This year, MEF is also offering a special developer rate of £75 per entry (3 employees or less, no external funding and in business for no more than 1 year). Please see the http://www.meffys.com/enter/cost-of-entry for further information.

Meffys Categories for 2011

Best Game
Best Music Service
Best TV & Video Service
Best Content
Best Content Discovery & Personalisation Service
Best Social Media Service
Best Ad Campaign
new this year Best Brand on Mobile
new this year Best Mobile Website
Best Blockbuster App
Best Innovative App*
Best Technology Innovation*
Best Innovative Business Model*
Best Innovation in a Mobile First Market*
Best M-Commerce Service
Best Business Intelligence
Best Mobile Connected Device
Outstanding Contribution Award

*These categories qualify for the developer rates. See http://www.meffys.com/enter/cost-of-entry for more info.

So get those thinking caps on. With Easter looming, April 26 will come around really quickly so don’t leave it too late to get your entry in.

Technorati Tags: awards,Meffys,Mobile Entertainment Forum

Phone Pay Plus consultation–your chance to have a say

For folks running premium rate services in the UK, you should already be familiar with Phonepay Plus (formerly ICSTIS) as they’re the regulator looking after that particular area of our industry. I know they’re not always the most popular folks in town, but they do have consumer interests at heart and I think it’s a very good thing that they exist.

Anyway, I’ve just had an email from my friends at the Mobile Entertainment Forum to alert me that there is now a consultation period for the new code due to come into force next year. The consultation period was announced today and closes 19 January 2011. I’ve copied pretty much word for word what was in their email a it’s useful stuff.

The 12th Code is radically different from the current Code and seeks to deliver outcomes rather than prescribe how services should operate. The premise is that as long as businesses deliver these outcomes for consumers, they will be more free to design their services in a way that suits them and their customers. (Sounds like a good approach to me.Ed) This makes it all the more important that the industry has a good understanding of PpP’s expectations in applying the new rules.

PpP’s consultation on the Guidance Notes shows what the Code means in practice so companies can be confident about what is required of them. The idea of the ‘new’ Guidance is to provide a consolidated source of information so providers of PRS (premium rate services) can easily find what they need and it should also allow for a quicker response to newly-identified risks or unacceptable practices (since Guidance can be updated without the need to amend the Code of Practice itself).

Alex Haffner at SNR Denton has now prepared a Guide covering the most important Guidance Notes for MEF members. (It seems to me that anyone can download a copy of the briefing notes by entering your contact details on the site. If that’s not the case, let me know and I’ll see if I can get a copy I can publish or link to from here so anyone interested can access – Ed.)

MEF has previously published a Guide to the PpP Code consultation.

For more information on MEF’s work please contact Suhail Bhat or Miranda Roberts.

And if you’re in the world of Mobile Entertainment in the UK and beyond, you may want to consider joining the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF). This is an example of the good stuff that they do for their members.

What will bring the money in for telcos?

Well, that’s what I was discussing yesterday at Telecom TV during a live panel session with Camille Mendler from Yankee Group, Edmond Osstyn from Alcatel-Lucent, Ian Scales and Robert Coren from Telecom TV with some extra questions and feedback from the live web audience. It was a lively session and lots of fun to do. We talked about the implications, issues and opportunities for mobile network operators with regards to mobile marketing, strategic partnerships and application stores; where and how would they make the money, what can be done, and what are the challenges they face. Anyway, if you’d like to take a look, you can see it here http://alu1.telecomtv.com/webinar/ondemand/?v=81

Technorati Tags: mobile network operators,mno,mobile,mobile marketing,mobile advertising,application stores,app store

Where mobile meets media…

It’s a big topic. We’re led to believe that the mainstream media world is in trouble with declining advertising revenues and difficulty in matching available revenues with cost of production. And not only that, there’s a whole new world of mobile and social media out there with unclear revenue models. Where do you place your bets? Do you knock down your existing business to create the new one? Do you wait before making your move but risk missing the boat altogether. These are all questions the answers to which are still unclear.

So with this in mind, I’ve pulled together a few links which may help shed some light if you’re mulling these kinds of questions over too.

There’s the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference which was on yesterday and today. Although I’m not there, and despite the distinct lack of women speakers (i.e. only one across two days – Jeez, is this really 2010?! Come on FT.com – you can do better), nevertheless I’m following some of the tweets from it and there are some gems in there. Have a look for the hashtag #FTMedia10 and follow FTDigitalMedia on Twitter. I’m sure there’ll be some news and blog coverage coming out of this conference too, so watch this space.

A *must read* article is this one Understanding the participatory news consumer – a comprehensive breakdown of the latest Pew Internet research showing what the US digital news consumer is up to on their mobile phone. I’m not going to repeat what the article covers, but it shows that mobile internet users access the internet more often than their fixed line counterparts:

“On-the-go news consumers:  Who are they?

The typical on-the-go news consumer is a white male, age 34, who has graduated from college and is employed full-time.  Given their younger profile, it is not surprising that 40% of this group are parents of young children (compared with 30% of the general adult population), and 32% have never been married.  One in three (32%) live in households with incomes of $75,000 or more. As a subset of the broader mobile internet population, on-the-go news consumers reflect many of their characteristics (see table below).

Not surprisingly, on-the-go news consumers maximize their cell phone use.  They are 67% more likely than other cell phone users to text message, more than twice as likely to take pictures with their phones, and four times as likely to use their phones to instant message.  They are also especially heavy internet users—80% of this on-the-go group are online on a given day, compared with just 67% of other internet users—and they engage in activities such as blogging (20% v. 11%), using social networking sites (73% v. 48%), and using status update sites like Twitter (29% v. 14%) at significantly higher rates than other internet users.”

And this topic or where mobile meets media was also on our minds in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress where the UKTI hosted a Mobile Monday London panel session discussing this very topic. Paul Skeldon from Telemedia 360 took some video of it, the highlights of which you can see here. It's in four parts with Russell Buckley, VP of Global Alliances at Admob chairing, and Chris Boden from Lonely Planet, Lucie McLean from the BBC, Steve Ives, CEO at Taptu and yours truly on the panel.

Is Traditional Media Dead?

Is Advertising Dead?

Are Applications Dead?

Will the iPad Save Us?

Paul also covered the panel session in this month’s Telemedia 360’s PDF newsletter which is worth a read if media and mobile is your game. [You can download a free copy from their website.] I am widely quoted in the article but to get the full context, it’s probably best to view the videos *and* read the article too to get the whole picture.

If anyone else out there has interesting links to share around the topic of where media meets mobile, then please do share in the comments below, or email me and I’ll add them to the article.

Technorati Tags: mobile,mobile media,barcelona,mwc10,mobile world congress,Russell Buckley,BBC,Lonely Planet,Taptu

Women in Mobile Data Association informal lunch in Barcelona

Update: Venue is confirmed!

It's that time of year again and Barcelona and a bit of sunshine beckons us to the spectacle that is Mobile World Congress. And I know there'll be quite a few of ladies there. So I’m organising an informal lunch on Tuesday 16th February for the Women in Mobile Data Association. The restaurant, Aranega, is a short walk from Congress (less than 10 minutes) on Avenida Paral-lel and thanks to our fantastic sponsor, HipLogic, there'll be tapas and refreshments for everyone. So that's your lunch break sorted then!

The Lowdown:

Date: Tuesday 16th February at 12.30 until 14.30

Venue: We have the upstairs room booked at the lovely Aranega - just like last year - http://www.aranega.es which is on Avenida Paral-lel 188. Come out of La Fira, walk down Avenida Paral-lel, and it's on the * left* hand side at number 188 -just over the road from Congress and less than 10 minutes walk.

Agenda and timings:

12.30 Doors will open at for drinks and mingling.
12.50, HipLogic's CEO, Mark Anderson, will give us a short talk on his vision for HipLogic followed by a few questions and some discussion. He wants to know what women like us think of the service and how we might use it.
13.10 - Tapas and more drinks will be served. Lots of chat and networking.
14.45 - Doors close and it's back to Congress we go.

It’s free to attend, but space is limited and because of this, priority will be given to the ladies in our group. If any gentlemen would like to join us, please contact me and I'll be able to confirm any remaining places at the weekend.

Please RSVP to me by email or on Facebook http://bit.ly/dr3eH2. Spaces are limited.

About our sponsor HipLogic

HipLogic Live delivers content from real-time sources like Facebook, Twitter, Sky, Disney, Sports, Weather, newsfeeds and more, through a smartphone-like interface that works is delivers push content notifications to the phonetop without using SMS. This means that they bring the world of applications, widgets, live search and real-time notifications to the mass market without the need to invest in a new smartphone. You just need one, simple, free download. The technology relies on a JavaScript virtual machine running on the device that is connected to the cloud that aggregates information and feeds from network operators and the Web to create mash-ups for use on Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android mobile devices. The aim is to provide always-on, fast access and logical presentation of content and applications that can be cumbersome to access through current mobile phone browsers - especially on multimedia-phones.

CEO Mark Anderson describes HipLogic as being an “extreme makeover” for your phone that will deliver an iPhone-like experience to the mass market. And he wants our feedback - that's why he's sponsoring our WiMD lunch. He wants to know what women think about this since we're the ones who are predominantly sold feature-phones and have less time and inclination to explore the world of applications and content - or so we're led to believe. Is this true? Let's find out on Tuesday 16th February.

HipLogic Live is available as a free download from http://www.hiplogic.com

Technorati Tags: wimd,mwc10,mobile world congress,barcelona,lunch,hiplogic,mobile content

Over The Air – two days of mobile goodness

After a short hiatus, Over The Air is on again this year. It’s a veritable 34-hour mobile fest starting on Friday 25th September at 9am at Imperial College, London. Proceedings close at 7pm on Saturday 26th September.

“Over the Air is a grass-roots mobile developer event that is completely unique in the mobile industry events calendar – it is free to attend, is hands-on in the style of hackdays and barcamps, covers the cutting edge of current mobile development (as opposed to glossy future-speak or sales-pitches), and features bean bags, a big party and an overnight sleep-over. There will also be a competition at the end of the event for the best categories of applications created during the event, with many great prizes.

This year’s programme is currently being put together, but will once again feature technical presentations, tutorials, workshops, and break-out rooms. Expect topics such as Open Source, Java, Symbian (Series-60), Mobile Web, Mobile Ajax, Android, Mobile Linux, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc. If you would like to run a session at Over the Air, please take moment to fill in our session suggestion form ( http://bit.ly/ota2009session ). (I believe there may be a couple of slots left if you’re quick - ed.) The sessions will be 55 minutes in length and while the focus of the event is on mobile development, we are also accepting sessions on user experience and design and we are putting together some sessions on mobile art including (hopefully) a mobile film festival.”

This year’s sponsors are Betavine, Lonely Planet, OMTP, Forum Nokia, Yahoo! Developer Network.

There are still places left so do sign up and join the fun with fellow mobilists from the UK, Spain and beyond.

Technorati Tags: over the air,barcamp,hackday,mobile,mobile technology,imperial college,mobile monday london,mobile developer,mobile development,mobile applications,mobile internet

Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards

Apologies for blog silence for the last few months. I’ve been busy twittering, but haven’t quite managed to write anything over 140 characters in length. Hopefully normal service will be resuming shortly.

Anyway, back to mobile business. My friends at Smaato have just announced their Mobile Advertising Awards and it looks pretty impressive to me. It’s the second year they’ve run it and entries are now open to find ‘the coolest ad-enabled mobile content on the planet.’

There are three categories – iPhone (inevitably), mobile website, and finally, mobile applications and games running on other platforms. It’s free to enter and there’s more info available on the Smaato website.

Smaato will invite the winners of each category to participate at next year’s Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. In addition, they will also make a number of introductions for winners to VC's at partner level.
Additional prizes are: a booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010, free tickets for Mobile World Congress, and many more.

The jury features a plethora of experienced mobilists and I’m quite sure they’ll have their work cut out for them with 100 or so entries for the first year’s awards. They’ll be looking at unique approach, traction in the marketplace, the idea itself, originality, company positioning and more.

The main prize of a presence at Mobile World Congress is not to be sniffed at so if you’re working in this area, I suggest you seriously think about entering. And if you do, good luck!

Technorati Tags: mobile,awards,mobile advertising,mobile web,iphone,mobile applications,mobile games,smaato,mobile world congress

New stats from Bango

According to a press release I got from Bango today, the USA has knocked the UK off the top slot for mobile web browsing with 29% of the worldwide traffic, according to data released today by Bango. And the good news for content providers is that the growth in traffic is being matched by the growth in users paying for content on the mobile web.

“With 245 million subscribers, it was only a matter of time before the US became the number 1 country in the world for mobile web browsing,” said Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing at Bango. “When it comes to payments though, the US is accelerating faster than any other country and now accounts for 57% of payments worldwide.”

The statistics also show that while some countries such as India and Indonesia have a good appetite for browsing on their mobiles, it doesn’t always convert into purchases. In fact, only five countries in the Top 10 browsing chart are also in the Top 10 payments chart – USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. All worth noting if you’re in the business of selling mobile content.

No matter how high the browsing rate, it is only converted into a high purchase rate where people have a good disposable income and can pay for content on their phone bills. In regions such as India, South Africa, Indonesia and Egypt the driver for mobile browsing is a lack of fixed-line broadband and PCs for accessing the internet which means that the mobile device is the only way people can get onto the internet. Which begs the question as to how this activity can be monetised. What advertising works in these markets and does the ad-funded model stack up economically?

The press release goes on…

“Many people simply have no idea that they have visitors from mobile devices accessing their PC website - these mobile visitors are simply invisible to them,” continued Malhotra. “Part of the problem is lack of awareness and to help, we have created a short video at www.bango.com/mobiletracking which explains how you can get a good grasp of how much mobile traffic you have.” And to save you the trouble of heading there to see it, you can see it here.

The February Bango statistics identified mobile web browsers from a total of 208 different countries and using 1,811 different handsets. View a sample of the mobile traffic going through the Bango system at http://bango.com/live/ (this is pretty cool actually to see the real live traffic. Admob does something similar.)

Food for thought.

Technorati Tags: mobile,mobile content,mobile internet,mobile web

It’s Monday, there must be some (mobile) stuff going on

It’s Monday night and normally at this time, I would be concluding our Mobile Monday session in anticipation of chat and mingling at the bar afterwards. However, due to an inordinate amount of snow (there’s over a foot of it in my garden in South West London) and a distinct lack of public transport available, we’ve had to postpone tonight’s event until next week. So rather than deprive you of your mobile fix entirely, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve been reading about mobile-wise of late.

Long form video content appeals which surprises those who are still fixated on the ‘snacking’ element of mobile entertainment. Of course there is still a case for ‘snacking’ on mobile, but much mobile internet usage, especially since the advent of the iphone, is actually at home and complementing other media usage. There’s more discussion about there being more than one mobile context here.

If mobile entertainment, video or otherwise, is your bag, then you could do worse than head to London to see Ralph Simon in action at E.Factor’s event on 23rd February. It’s free for members to attend and £28 for non-members.

Tonight, we *had* planned to talk about the role of widgets in the future of the mobile web. Instead, you’ll have to make do with Vodafone Betavine’s widget competition. Betavine, a Vodafone Group R&D lab, is offering mobile developers a chance to win £20,000 in a new mobile widget competition. The competition opens today and runs until 30th April. The rules are very simple and seems like a great opportunity to me.

Opera claims that 9 out of 10 mobile internet users are male. I think this research is somewhat skewed. Research I’ve been looking at shows that smartphone usage, including the iphone, is heavily male skewed which probably explains the figures that Opera is reporting. Overall, however, the mobile internet is older and more female than you might expect. At least that’s what the nice people at m:metrics shared with me recently.

And last but not least…

Despite the snow, my friend, Oli Barrett, made a valiant effort at the crack of dawn to launch his Make Your Mark With a Tenner competition. Possibly not the best day of the year to choose to launch your new campaign, but nevertheless, it’s got picked up on by The Telegraph. It’s a really simple premise, 25,000 kids will get given a tenner and a month to go and make money with it. Oli explains it all here.

Technorati Tags: mobile,opera,opera mini,statistics,report,video,entertainment,mobile content,links,linkage

Sharpcards secures deal with T-Mobile UK

Sharpcards has just announced its agreement with T-Mobile in the UK to embed its EMMA system (that's Enhanced Mobile Messaging Application to you and me) on certain of T-Mobile's handsets in the UK. This is to create a better MMS messaging experience for T-Mobile customers.

"Under terms of the three-year agreement, EMMA will be embedded within the messaging menu of the specific handsets. EMMA allows T-Mobile customers to send high quality ecards as easy as sending a text message, by putting the service right in front of the customer at a time when they're texting.

Ecards are designed as an imaginative was to send picture messages – fun and flirty animations for everyday sending, from the world's top brands.

EMMA comes in both Java and Symbian and is a fully integrated part of the handset software that requires no further installation by the customer. Content is continually updated and the customer does not pay a data fee to access the ecards."

T-Mobile in the UK, happens to be the cheapest MMS provider (as far as I know at least) at just 20p a message. And this represents very good value. The idea behind including the EMMA system, means that customers can access sophisticated mobile content such as animations and include that in their MMS messages. There's a one-off fee of 75p for the animation you choose, but once downloaded to your phone, you can use it as many times as you like.

I encourage ways to help normobs increase their usage of more sophisticated aspects of their phones and this is a great start. My only question is the pricepoint... is 75p too much for the average teenager (for I'm guessing it will be teenagers who might drive this) for something like this? I suspect once the service has gained some traction and is out there on a selection of handsets in the market that we'll see some ad-funded models emerging or specific sponsored content... I can already visualise Coca-Cola traditional Christmas animations and Love Hearts at Valentine's Day. I do hope so, as I think it will be at that point that this will really take off and could be an interesting spin on mobile marketing.

Technorati Tags: messaging,MMS,T-Mobile,animation,graphics,wallpapers,mobile content,mobile marketing

A mobile video success story - Channel 4

Big up to the folks at Channel 4 and their Embarassing Bodies series. As part of the series, they encouraged viewers to text in to get a link to download a video showing them how to check their bits to spot things they should be going to the doctor about. This is supported by a very comprehensive website. All the content is free to view but standard network rates apply.

Anyway, they've had very impressive results and you can read all about it over on Alfie's blog.

More linkage

I guess it's one of those days - so much to write about, so little time, so a few more links are just going to have to do you...

• The Mobile Goldmine event looks an interesting one where you can explore how to make money with mobile content. It's on October 17th in the evening and limited to just 50 places. And the price? Absolutely FREE (but you do need to book in advance).

• New research out from Netimperative in conjunction with Q Research about 'Young Minds'. They interviewed 3,000 eleven to twenty-five year olds for the four reports including two on mobile - Mobile Music and Mobile Advertising. A synopsis of what's covered can be found over at the Netimperative website. Reports are usually £1,000 each, but you can get all four for £2,500. I don't s'pose the nice folks at NetImperative would like to give me a copy of the mobile reports for review here maybe...?

• Barcamp Mobile London is happening on Saturday 29th September in Soho. Aimed at designers/ developers/ entrepreneurs/ artists working on mobile applications, devices, and experiences. From FlashLite and mobile Processing to openMoko, Green Phone and the iPhone. "The idea is to create a camp where hackers and designers can come and play together. If you do stuff with small screens, voice, or something in between, come and share. mobileCampLondon is about big idea evangelism, and nitty-gritty details. We’ll look at what matters most: well crafted code, and a solid understanding of how people use their phones."

So if this is your thing, then Mobile Bar Camp London is well worth a look. Find out more about the whole Bar Camp movement over at wikipedia to get a flavour of what to expect.

• Mobstar joins up with this weekend's V Festival to offer a virtual mobile flame amongst other things. I would tell you what they are, but they're exclusive to Virgin Mobile customers. You know what, you've missed a trick here guys 'n gals... A chance to make extra revenue (charge non-Virgin customers more), ask someone if they want to know more about the advantage of being on Virgin vs whatever network the customer has come in on (for they know the operator in 9 cases out of 10 so could personalise it), a chance for data capture, a call to action to check out a Virgin shop or the Virgin Mobile stand at the festival. Come on peeps, it's not good enough to simply say 'This is only for Virgin Mobile customers' and alienate the 10s of 1000s of customers of other networks who've paid good money to attend the V Festival. Mr Branson would *not* be proud methinks. Grrr.
  

Challenges faced by the Operators and Mobile Developer Community by Umar Akram

I was approached this week by Danish entrepreneur Umar Akram (see pic) from Mobile Weaver ApS to publish his article which is a discussion about the challenges faced by mobile operators and mobile developers with a call for a unifying standards body for mobile development to ease those challenges.

It seemed like an interesting enough topic to publish, and as I'm not a developer myself, I'd really welcome your thoughts and comments on what Umar has to say and whether or not you agree. Do we need a unifying body? Do any of the industry associations cover any of this off? Where do the W3C standards fit in to this? I'll let Umar take it from here.

"The revenue generated from voice is clearly diminishing with every passing day, forcing the operators to explore new areas of growth through continuous innovation in technologies and services. Recently I had an opportunity to attend a Vodafone D2C strategy briefing which brought out Vodafone initiative for the next three years. During this briefing Vodafone significantly highlighted the fact that despite the anticipated consolidation by European operators, the operators should focus on services other than the traditional voice based services so that they can generate greater revenue for themselves.

In the fast moving competitive market of Europe, operators are not only facing the challenge of competing with low cost MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) but are also continuously struggling to retain their existing subscribers. Besides few exceptions, many operators in Asia and other developing countries have still not been able to implement long term data services strategy, with the result their mobile play is still primarily focused on voice.

As the ARPU (average revenue per user) on voice continues to decrease, data has become the most dominant factor for operators in retaining and attracting the customers. The key factors which have complemented the growth of data services in developed countries are the increasing capabilities of mobile phones, faster networks like 3G and mobile applications that bring a rich user experience by changing the way people live, work and play.

With the changing trends, operators are now expecting their revenues to grow, as the subscriber’s appetite for content has increased. They are always on a look out for a “killer application” that can easily become popular among the subscribers and thus create brand loyalty for them. But from the mobile content developer’s perspective it’s not a simple task to come up with such an application.

The major challenge highlighted at the Google’s Open Source discussion event was the absence of standards for the developers in the industry. Optimizing these applications for different OS and broad range of mobile devices with varying screen sizes and versions remains the biggest problem for the mobile content developers. Even if the portability issues are resolved, distribution still remains a big challenge for the developers. It is the dream of every mobile content developer to get their content distributed through an operator. But the unending list of pre requisites on various issues of portability, certification and in some cases localization can turn this dream into a complete night mare.

The explosive growth in mobile content has transformed it into the buzzword of every article, publication and news around us. A new report issued by market intelligence firm iSuppli forecasts that the market for premium mobile content will exceed $44 billion by 2011, more than doubling the $20 million anticipated for 2007. The major driving force for the mobile content developer is to get an easy access to the information and APIs (application programming interface) which are held confidential by the OEMs and OS providers of mobile devices.

There should be one organization that can set guidelines and standards for content development by consulting all the stake holders in the value chain. This will facilitate the developers to focus only on the core issue, which is to develop applications for the consumers that can add value in their lives. This thing is not as simple as it seems.

Due to various political, economical and competitive landscape constraints, it’s very hard to unite all the stakeholders in one place and develop standards for content developers globally. Otherwise we can rightly say that lack of standards will remain the biggest hurdle for the content developer community."

This article is written by Umar Akram, a Danish entrepreneur who focuses on mobile and internet services. Umar is the founder and Vice President of Mobile Weaver ApS and is currently serving as the member of the board. Youpark, a flagship product of Mobile Weaver, is an online storefront that provides mobile users with over 12,000 best selling mobile software and games suitable for wide range of popular devices.

Monday morning linkage

Morning world. A few links for a Monday morning now the sun is finally shining!

First the bad news, a Polish bus driver loses job over text lottery addiction. Oh dear oh dear, where *did* he get the time and how on earth did he think he'd get away with it?

In need of a laugh? Seen Headzup? Anyone used it? For those who don't know, Headzup is 'catch and release comedy' for mobile phones and video ipods. The daily Headzup editorial cartoons and parody clips, many with a political slant, are designed for downloading and sharing as picture messages (MMS) which is why they're so short. With the US election campaigning well under way, the latest headzups do have a political slant and I'm really interested to see what effect this kind of campaigning has in the US.

Got a fancy new Nokia smartphone? No idea how it works or what to do with it? Then you could do worse than head over to check out Smartphonin' where you'll find tips and hints on how to use your phone. Also worth a look is Darla Mack's blog all about mobile phones, including lots of interesting stuff about Nokia phones like this post on a DJ mixer mobile application for your N-series Nokia.

The link between music and mobile gets stronger with Sony Ericsson, Orange and Channel 4 teaming up for a new music talent show. The TV show is called MobileAct and viewers will be able to download tracks from competing bands and vote for the one they want to progress through to the competition. The competition will shortlist 25 bands, who will all record their own video auditions with a further 25 being picked by a music industry panel.

Francois Mahieu, Orange UK's director of devices, said:

"We want there to be a direct link between what they can see on TV and listen to on their mobile. When the TV programme begins, Orange will kick off a number of initiatives so that customers feel they are part of the choice, including getting the music free."

And finally, the first book written on a mobile phone has been published by lulu.com, the self-publishing platform people. The author, Robert Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers is the English translation), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone's T9 typing system.

By dividing his manuscript into short paragraphs, Mr. Bernocco wrote his novel in perfect Italian, not your typical text-message shorthand, and saved the paragraphs on his mobile phone. Mr. Bernocco then downloaded them onto his home computer for proofreading and editing. The book took him 17 weeks to write.

Ringtones are the thing... or are they?

Well, it's pretty busy as usual at technokitten towers so just to keep my hand in with what's hot in mobile right now, here's some Friday linkage about ringtones 'n stuff.

Tele2 is running a user-generated ringtone competition in Sweden. Unfortunately, I don't speak Swedish so I can't tell you much about it! Perhaps a Swedish speaking reader could shed some light on this for me?

Cellfish.com introduced its Mobile Threat collection of hardcore punk, metal and indie rock ringtones, videos and image downloads for mobile this week. This means that the next time you ride public transport, you just might get an earful of GWAR, Shadows Fall, Everytime I Die, Chimaira and The Devil Wears Prada – consider this your early warning notice. Cellfish Media has partnered with the Sounds of the Underground summer music tour to bring the hard rocking genre of music fans a collection of mobile entertainment to suit their tastes... I think I'll stick to the theme tune from Fame as my ringtone for now ;)

But it seems that mobile games are the new black when it comes to revenue generation rather than ringtones. That comes as no big surprise to me as you can use mp3 files now for ringtones and it's not *that* difficult to make your own from your existing mp3 files.

So it's no surprise that free mobile content seems to be gaining popularity and some serious traction. Zedge.net now has over 5 million subscribers. I'm not sure how many of these are active, or what they're actually doing, nevertheless, it's impressive.

And since April 2006, I'm reliably informed that Cellufun, has delivered close to 4 million downloads to consumers in 160 countries. Cellufun offers free, ad-supported mobile products, predominantly free games ranging from Sudoku to casino to space battles and racing games. You can join the community by going to http://wap.cellufun.com from your web-enabled mobile phone.

And if you're a mobile addict, gaming or otherwise, you can now play with your phone safely in the bath as DoCoMo has just launched a waterproof mobile phone. Actually, joking apart, this would have been handy at Glastonbury this year, I know a few folks whose phones died after getting wet in the rain or being dropped in a puddle or the mud!

Samsung and Die Hard 4.0 team up for mobile action

I don't have a Samsung phone these days so I've no idea what the substance of the content is here as I have a Nokia (Dear Mr Samsung, please feel free to send me a lovely shiny new Samsung phone if you feel so inclined...), but the joint campaign for Samsung and Die Hard 4.0 looks pretty good and works in three parts...

1. Get free Die Hard 4.0 related content for your phone (text in DH to 62945 to get the link - but only if you have a Samsung phone - don't bother if you don't have a Samsung phone as they won't let you in to the wapsite).

2. Buy the official Die Hard mobile game

3. Enter the Die Hard Quiz for a chance to win blockbusting prizes

As it's all Samsung phone specific, I can't test it for you. And you'd have to be the die-hardest Die Hard fan to upgrade your phone to a Samsung on the back of this campaign. But for customer retention, I think it works. And there's nothing wrong with a bit of customer retention. There should be more of it!

If there are any readers out there who've tried out this campaign or have more information about it, then please do let us know if the content was any good and if it worked for you.

Rok Comics launches

If you're a fan of comics as a creator or reader, then Rok has something for you. If you love comics, you can now access them on your phone over at Rok Comics. And if you're a comic creator, they have devised a flash-based platform whereby you can create your own comic strip and what's more, you can potentially make some money from it. Professional creators will receive 50% of the available revenue on every sale and have full access to sales statistics, page views and more. As a publisher, you can also create free samples of strips to be viewed online (on a blog, website or in an email) or on mobile in order to promote their print editions. You can also access the service from your mobile at http://wap.rokcomics.com

And to help drive this forward, they've got a very experienced guy in charge, John Freeman, ex Marvel UK. He's a veteran of the comics and magazines world having edited Dr Who Magazines, Death's head II, Star Trek Magazine and overseeing the launch of titles including Star Wars and the UK version of the Simpson's comic.

It's not the first mobile comic service, but it does sound interesting nevertheless and if I had more time, I'd go take a look so if anyone else out there does have the time to try, please let me know how you get on with it.

Marketing to the Over 50s Podcast available

I know it's taken me a bit of time, but at last we have the podcast available of our last Women in Mobile Data meeting. Dick Stroud from 20plus30 was kind enough to come and talk to us about the issues, challenges and opportunities of marketing to the over 50s and a fascinating insight it was too. The podcast is quite a chunky file, and it's quite long, but if you have the time, I think you'll find it well worthwhile. It'll make you rethink where the money is in the market (clue: not with 18 to 24 y/o men) and how we can no longer segment by age and postcode. Dick's blog is also well worth a read with lots of really interesting facts and commentary on marketing to seniors (although how you can call a 50 year old a senior beats me these days - Madonna will be 50 next year and I wouldn't exactly call her old).

A big thank you to podcast and video specialists Sarah at Kinura for recording it and to Lloyd at Perfect Path for hosting it for us. And of course to Dick for coming to speak to us and all the ladies (and gents) who attended. We really appreciate you taking the time and trouble to do this for us and support Women in Mobile Data.

So the link to the podcast again is here. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment here on what you thought.

Bango Nexus Cafe - How to make money on the mobile web

Just had an email pop into my inbox about a Bango Nexus Cafe breakfast briefing in London at the lovely Soho Hotel on Wednesday 16th May at 9am where you can learn how you can make more money on the mobile web.

If you're a content provider or brand with content ready to sell, or already selling mobile content via the traditional Premium SMS route, make sure you don't miss out as you'll find out more about the market opportunity, how it works and some interesting case studies to boot including some experiences from Houssain Elguertit from Gameloft and what they did around mCommerce. And I'm expecting the networking will be fun too (well, I'll be there if that's any help and I know the Bango folks are friendly!).

It's just £19.99 to attend if you book online, but if you're very quick and register before 24th April (that's tomorrow dear readers) then it's a bargain £9.99. To register for the £9.99 offer, just text GO CAFE to 85080. And all attendees get a copy of Bango's very useful 'Practical Guide to Mobile Marketing' as well. Can't be bad.