Lots of mobile stuff going on… here are a few

Mobile Monday London is going great guns. We have three events lined up in the next few weeks – yes three! On 6 June we’ve organised a debate to get to the bottom of the HTML vs. Apps argument sponsored by the lovely folks at BlackBerry. On 20 June, we’re talking about geolocation in association with UCL and their upcoming iphone dev training programme and on 4 July we’ll be talking about the developer ecosystem and sharing new insights from Vision Mobile and BlueVia. Keep up to date with Mobile Monday London on email (we have a useful discussion group), facebook, linkedin and twitter and keep an eye on our event site http://momolo.org for registration details.

And there’s more…

The BLN Money in Mobile Awards are open for entries until noon on 31 May. This a great opportunity for *any* mobile company – not just a start-up – to get some exposure to new clients, VCs and journalists. This award forms part of the Money in Mobile conference from the nice folks at The BLN (Business Leader’s Network) and the 10 companies chosen will present on the day. It’s free to enter and they’re just after a 100 word entry from you here. You have nothing to lose by entering and everything to gain. So go for it! Oh, and if you’d like to attend the conference as well, there is a rather decent Mobile Monday London discount on offer…details here.

And for mobile start-ups specifically, the annual Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition is up and running again and Mobile Monday London is helping Vodafone run the UK element of the event. We’re after the best mobile start-up in the UK to put forward to the final in Amsterdam in September where you’ll be up against competitors from Turkey, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Holland and Germany. The prize fund is Euro 225,000. There are no strings attached to the prize either – you don’t have to do a deal with Vodafone and no-one is after a % of your business. Again, it’s free to enter so get those thinking caps on and get those entries in. Closing date, midnight CET 12 June. More details on the MoMoLo blog.

Keep your eyes peeled as well for the upcoming EMMAs (which I’m judging again) and the MEF upcoming conference and Meffys Awards ceremony (I was a judge for that too for the third time I think). More on both of those as I get details.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 are go!

STOP PRESS: The competition is now open to entrants from Spain as well as the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. The closing date remains the same - 22 August 2010.

And it’s bigger and better than last year and Mobile Monday London is very pleased to be supporting this year’s Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition. And as part of that, I’m helping to organise again this year and will be part of the UK jury to find the best mobile internet start-up to put forward to the final in Amsterdam in September.

You can read some bits and pieces about last year’s event here.

The aim of the competition is to find the best mobile internet start-up across the UK, Portugal and The Netherlands and reward the winner with Euro 100,000 and the runner-up with Euro 50,000. A pretty decent prize-fund I’d say. And in accepting the prize, you don’t have to give away IP or equity to Vodafone.

The competition opens today and closes on 22nd August at midnight. But please don’t leave your entry until the last minute. All entries need to be completed in English and you do need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions. The actual competition Ts & Cs are only about 6 pages – the rest of the document relates to the Ts & Cs for Vodafone’s Widget platform which you must also agree to. Yes, it’s a long document, but please give it the once over to make sure you’re happy with it. I’ve read it and I can’t see anything particularly nasty in there, but I’m not an expert on these things, nor am I a lawyer so don’t just take my word for it.

The application form is pretty straight forward but I highly recommend that you take some thought before you fill it in. There is limited space, and limited time for the judges to read and take in what you’re writing, so it means you need to to think through clearly what your proposition is, describe the features but make sure you also state the benefits as these are what make you attractive to customers.

You can only enter once and once you’ve entered, you may not amend your entry.

Entry is now open at http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/ and you can follow progress of the competition on the VMC2010 official twitter account. And if twitter’s your thing, you can also follow Mobile Monday London there too.

The 5 judging criteria are:

• originality, creativity and innovation;
• technical and operational feasibility;
• economic and financial viability;
• value to end-users;
• and finally, on the quality of the management team.

If you have specific questions or concerns, please get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to answer your questions or put you in touch with someone who can.

Entry Criteria:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 is open to any individual aged 18 or over resident in the Netherlands, Portugal or the United Kingdom and to Dutch, Portuguese and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/ business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up in this context means that the enterprise/business must be less than 3 years old.
• Each participant may submit only one entry.
• Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 and 2009 may resubmit to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010.
• There is no charge for entry

There are three stages to the contest:

1. We will collate all the entries and the local jury will review them to get to a shortlist of 5.
2. We will then review the shortlist to find a single company or individual to put forward to the final.
3. The UK finalist will present at the final to be held at Picnic in Amsterdam on 24 September 2010 alongside the finalists from The Netherlands and Portugal.

Last year we were able to put three companies through to the final at Picnic. They were Audioboo, Rummble and Woobius. Woobius came third and walked away with a Euro 25,000 prize. And Audioboo and Rummble have both done very well since last year’s contest, both recently raising funds and growing their respective businesses.

We asked all our UK finalists from VMC2009 what they thought of the competition last year and whether or not it was worth entering.

Mark Rock from Audioboo tells us: "Vodafone Mobile Clicks was one of the freshest competitions of 2009. To have a mobile network operator embrace the start-up community in this way was fantastic. The quality of the judging through 3 rounds was excellent, if a little gruelling, And the support & help given all the way through to being taken to Amsterdam to compete in the finals (we didn't win, by the way) was above and beyond the normal competition process. Vodafone Mobile Clicks is worth the effort"

And Andrew Scott from Rummble said: "Vodafone put considerable energy behind the Mobile Clicks competition which definitely contributed to our profile .. it was also a lot of fun!"

And here’s a couple of pictures of the Woobius team with their prize cheque. Well done Woobius!

So, get the thinking caps on and get entering. The Mobile Monday London team wishes you the best of luck!

The official press release is below.

VODAFONE MOBILE CLICKS 2010 COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

Search to find best mobile internet start-up across three European markets is on

27^th July, 2010. Vodafone today announced the launch of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 will run across three European markets - Netherlands, Portugal and UK.

The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application and entrants can compete for the €150,000 prize fund by submitting entries to www.vodafonemobileclicks.com. The competition is open now, and the closing date for entries is midnight, August 22nd, 2010.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds. Each competing market will draw up a shortlist of their five best local submissions, a winner will be selected from each shortlist and finally all local winners will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24^th, 2010, where the overall winner will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts, including Om Malik, founder of the GigaOM Network, Russell Buckley, VP Global Alliances at Admob, and Rudy de Waele, Founder of dotopen, the Mobile Premier Awards and co-founder of the Mobile 2.0 Conferences in San Francisco and Barcelona.

Launched in 2008, Vodafone Mobile Clicks is a Vodafone initiative designed to accelerate innovation in the mobile internet sector across Europe. It is now the biggest mobile start-up competition of its kind.

“Through initiatives like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and our wider developer outreach programme, we’re finding ways to help stimulate, grow and commercialise the innovation that is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem,” said Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group. “Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market. I’m excited to be judging another year of inspiring entries from entrants across Europe.”

Previous Vodafone Mobile Clicks winners include Layar, an Amsterdam-based company who developed an augmented reality service that allows mobile customers to see information on nearby points of interest – for example houses for sale, popular bars and tourist information – by simply looking through a phone’s camera lens. The service launched in June 2009, and throughout 2010 the platform has seen 20% month-on-month growth. Layar has recently announced a strategic partnership with phone manufacturers LG and Samsung.

For further information about the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition, or to enter your company, go to: http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com

Technorati Tags: Vodafone Mobile Clicks,vodafone,competition,start-up,mobile internet,mobile applications,entrepreneurship

Vote for your favourite start-up and help them win Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Some of you may know that I’ve been working with Vodafone UK & NL on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. I helped to organise it and was also one of the judges for the first heats.

We're now coming to  the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to our Mobile Monday London Yahoo Group, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine.
Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/polls

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobius http://www.woobius.com/ (UK)
A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK)
A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicture http://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL)
Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboo http://audioboo.fm/ (UK)
Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layar http://layar.com/ (NL)
A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsE http://www.mynameise.com/ (NL)
Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Thanks everyone and please get voting!

Technorati Tags: Mobile Monday London,vote,Vodafone Mobile Clicks,competition,start-up,Rummble,Woobius,MobyPicture,Audioboo,Layar,MyNameIsE

Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition now open to the UK with a prize fund of €150, 000

Vodafone UK and Mobile Monday London today announce Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009, a competition to inspire start-up businesses and individual developers to create and deliver a new mobile site or service – all creative ideas are welcome.

Mobile Clicks 2009 is run jointly with Vodafone Netherlands. If you wish to enter, please visit www.vodafonemobileclicks.com. The final will be held in Amsterdam in September and will feature three finalists from each country. The first three winners will be awarded a total sum of €150,000.

Last years’ Mobile Clicks’ winners included Nulaz, a location-based social networking service merging Google Maps and Facebook to allow people to see where their friends are, share locations and view local information, Tipspot a new online city guide service and Map the Gap, an idea-sharing application for mobile phones.

The competition consists of three selection rounds, running from April to September 2009. The panel of judges will include mobile internet experts from Vodafone as well as other industry leaders. The winner will be announced in Amsterdam in September this year.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 is open to any individual residing in the Netherlands or the UK from the age of 18 years and to Dutch and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up means that the enterprise/business cannot be older than three years since its inception.
• Each participant may submit only one entry.
• (Previous Dutch) Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 are allowed to participate again in Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009

Registration for this contest is now open. Registration for the Netherlands will close at April 30th, 2009 and registration for the UK will close on May 14th, 2009.

We’ll have more details about the competition up on the Mobile Monday London website as and when they happen and we’ll have some Vodafone people on hand at our upcoming events too. In the meantime, head over to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 and see how you can get your hands on some of that €150, 000 prize fund to kick start your business and get your service to market. The closing date for UK entries is 14th May 2009 so get your thinking caps on. Good luck!

Technorati Tags: competition,Vodafone,innovation,start-up,business,mobile,MoMolondon,MoMoLo,Mobile Monday

What's new at Vodafone?

Well, a few things it seems as I've been browsing their website this morning. First off, they've launched a very interesting report on m-transactions, mobiles and developing countries. I've written up a short piece about it over at the Mobile Messaging 2.0 blog.

Then I found this press release about good value roaming data charges with their Connect Abroad tarriff. Yes, Ewan, you did see that correctly! It looks like a pretty good deal to me and takes the worry out of how to connect when you're abroad. Yes, it means you have to have an active Vodafone sim card, but if you do much travelling, this has got to be a good thing to get.

"Laptop users will have a reliable and competitively-priced alternative to WiFi starting this summer, when from 2 July Vodafone drops its laptop data roaming prices to EUR12 per day (excl. VAT) for wireless roaming across Vodafone subsidiaries in Europe, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand, and with partners in France, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium"

If I was doing more travelling, I'd definitely be up for this.

Bank Holiday links

As the Bank Holiday draws to a close, I thought I'd better capture a few links that might be of interest, so here goes...

Comeks raises cash but I still don't know how to get it on to my phone or my 'puter so I wonder if it's a network operator specific service? If so, it's a shame, as I reckon it would go down a treat with the community at Moblog UK. It looks to be a great service that gives you the tools to turn your photos and images into a comic strip so you can create those photo-love type stories as seen in The Sun (print version) or in days gone by the much missed Jackie magazine. Thanks to Dan for the tip-off.

Talking of which, they've been very busy of late at Moblog UK with new moblogs for Channel 4's Binwatch, a new anime moblog for Gong Studios (and there's prizes 'n everything on offer) and the official launch of the Big Art Mob, again for Channel 4. It’s the UK’s first comprehensive survey of Public Art – based entirely on pictures from the camera phones of art-lovers nationwide. It aims to record for posterity the wealth of artworks in public places right across the country and serve as the focus of a dynamic national conversation. Go check the site out and take part yourself.

Vodafone/Cingular (USA) has included in its website terms and conditions to disallow deep links to their website, and also disallowing bloggers or anyone really from saying anything negative about them. Now that just seems barmy to me. I understand copyright issues and libel or slander and that's fair enough, but to stop free speech and hyperlinks seems ridiculous. Although it does appear to be legal. I imagine monitoring this will become nigh on impossible as the internet and blogosphere both grow exponentially. Ewan has also commented on this over at SMStextnews. It seems to me that the days of 'controlling' your message are long gone and these ts and cs seem a bit last century.

Kajeet launches an MVNO in the USA for tweens with snazzy mobile phones *and* related, targeted content aimed at kids aged 8 to 12 and it looks pretty good to me. The characters they've invented are appealing, the handsets look ok (although they won't be as funky as their older siblings' Razr and Krazr handsets from Motorola), it's well priced, a lot of thought has gone into keeping both parents and kids happy so maybe this is one MVNO that will work. Their aim is to sign up 175,000 customers in their first year.

mobile web will overtake pc web

Yahoo! states "more people will be accessing the internet via their mobile phones than their PCs in 10 years time". Of course this is on the back of a news item that Vodafone's European operations is in discussions with Yahoo! about hosting mobile ads and developing voice activated search technology, with a view to introducing the mobile ad format by the end of the year.

I do believe they're right though about global internet access - it will be predominantly via mobile, especially in developing nations whose subscription growth rates are phenomenal. The latest stats I read were that there were more mobile phone subscriptions in China than the whole population of the USA and that Indian subscriptions were growing at a rate of 6m a month. Food for thought.