Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Barcelona and Mobile World Congress – the bad and the ugly and how to avoid it

As much as I love the city, and I really do, I know it’s notorious for pickpockets and thefts. Too many of my friends have experienced this first hand…. like a friend of mine who had her laptop bag stolen and the thief called her up and ransomed it to her for 100 Euros. Or the fact that several of my male friends have had their wallets nicked when distracted by girls flirting with them. Or my pal who was beaten up for his laptop & wallet near La Rambla and ended up in casualty. Or the time when a group of colleagues all used the official cloakroom on site at La Fira during Mobile World Congress when going into a seminar. When they came to collect their bags and coats, they were all there, minus the laptops. Or the time in the expensive, fancy restaurant where a friend had his laptop stolen from under his chair whilst he was sitting on it. Or the one I’ve literally just heard about where they had a load of stuff stolen from their apartment by the ‘welcome’ guy – they got everything back when they challenged him, but even so…

I am so very thankful this hasn’t been my personal experience. Nevertheless, I take precautions and I am vigilant (and this applies to London, Barcelona, Rome, wherever).

Anyway, my advice is

  • don’t carry a laptop or any valuables with you if you don’t need to. If you do bring a laptop, make sure it’s backed up and secure with relevant passwords or whatever so that if it got lost, stolen or damaged, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
  • Don’t keep all your money together in one place. Use zipped pockets for your wallet and passport in your bag. Or a hidden money belt. Don’t carry more cash or credit cards than you need.
  • Use your hotel or apartment safe if there is one.
  • Leave the grey suit, the tie and the formal laptop bag at home. Avoid bringing your laptop to any of the networking parties *if* you can.
  • Tuck your MWC pass inside your top or jacket when you leave La Fira.
  • Have a spare phone and Pay as you go SIM just in case your main phone gets stolen.
  • Back up your phone to your laptop and also to an online service like Synkia (my personal preference as it also stores my SMS), to Mobyko, Zyb, or whatever your preference so you can still access your numbers and transfer them if you need to.

And on top of this, it’s worth reading this blog post about what to avoid.

If you have any tips to share, please comment away and let’s avoid having a nasty experience mar what can be one of the most fantastic weeks of the mobile year.

Only for girls?

I know facebook is not known for its fantastic advertising. It really is tedious to be told that you're lonely and old and must be looking for a man if you're a single women of a certain age. Equally the offers for free Uggs, dresses or whatever because you're a specific age are meaningless drivel too. What has age got to do with it?

Anyway, this advert just appeared when I was on facebook just now and it's wound me up so much I'm sharing with the world. Yet another example of lazy marketing, of dumbing down for girls. I know it's an affiliate who has set it up rather than Vodafone. But it's still a Vodafone offer ultimately that the affiliate is using. You can see what it clicks through to here: http://tbgadserver.com/vodafone/simonly/girls.php

So, I'm wondering do boys get offers for blue phones saying 'only for boys'?!

Quite. Thought not.

And the industry wonders why smartphones are still skewed 75% male which impacts on the uptake of mobile apps, mobile web and more sophisticated mobile services....

Grrr.

Posted via email from Technokitten

Monday, February 01, 2010

I want, you want, we all want Swedish Beers… again!

Yes, it’s that time of year. It’s all about Barcelona and it’s as hectic as ever. But hey, I wouldn’t like it if it was any different.

Jenny Hiley has been keeping the Swedish Beers love going Down Under in Sydney for the last year (thank you Jenny!) and I’m pleased to announce that I will be spreading some more Swedish Beers love by running Swedish Beers in Barcelona again this year with a little help from my friends.

We had such a great time last year – about 800 of you turned up throughout the night and you didn’t want to leave when it was closing time. We had folks there from as far afield as New Zealand and Brazil. We have global reach people! We also had people there from network operators, mobile marketing agencies, brands, analysts, journalists, entrepreneurs, developers of all flavours of mobile, aggregators, content creators, messaging specialists, media owners and lots more besides. You want it, you got it at Swedish Beers.

And by all accounts it was an epic night for some last year. People are still telling their ‘Swedish Beers’ tales, and not just from last year, from previous years to that too! I guess we’re doing something right then…

Anyway, we have the lovely Admob confirmed as our lead sponsor – third year running in Barcelona and I think the 5th time they’ve sponsored Swedish Beers since we started back in October 2001 in London.

We are still on the lookout for more sponsors though to help the party really go with a swing. Like last year, we can provide the atmosphere, warm bodies, great banter, friendly welcome and a good time if you can contribute towards the beer fund. Another £4,000 and I’d be *really* happy and not only would I be happy, but a lot of other people would be very happy too! Do get in touch if you’d like to make that happen :)

Anyway, the important bit…

Our venue for the evening is Dostrece which is a two floor bar and restaurant – a ground floor and a chillout basement. Yes, that's right, a restaurant too! This means that they will be serving food from their normal menu until about 9pm so you'll get a chance to eat too if you want to. Prices are reasonable and it's a mix of Mexican, Spanish and Turkish flavours. @BCN_unlike reviews it here. We ate there last year and it was very tasty.

The venue holds about 300 or so folks at any one time so there’s plenty space for everyone. Dostrece is behind La Boqueria market and the nearest metro station is Liceu. Just walk up La Rambla, walk past La Boqueria and Teatro Grec, then take a left at Calle Carme (or Carrer del Carme) and Dostrece is at number 40 (Google map here). (They also have free wifi if you want to demo your latest iphone app.)

Doors will be opening at 6.30pm on Wednesday 17th February and we'll be open until late so there's plenty of time to drop by and enjoy the fun, meet interesting people and soak up the Swedish Beers vibe. There is no need to RSVP, but since there's a bar courtesy of our lovely sponsors, we will be distributing beer tokens on the night so you’ll have to look for the Swedish Beers crew and the lovely folks from Admob.

Like our previous events, this is a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations, no business cards thrust in your face as soon as you arrive. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to talk nonsense to strangers, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties at the door please.

It is likely to get a bit busy at times. But don't worry, people will be coming in and out all evening. That’s kind of the point as we know there’s always a lot going on. If it's very busy, there's no need to queue to get in. Just check out one of the other bars nearby and come back a little later when it's a bit less frantic.

We don't have a cloakroom so I don't recommend you bring your laptops with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid. You won't need them anyway what with this new fangled thing called the mobile phone ;)

So just to recap:

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When: Wednesday 17th February 2010, 6.30pm until we run out of steam
Where: Dostrece, Calle Carme 40, 08001 Barcelona

And of course, it couldn't happen at all without the generous support of our lovely sponsors, the first of which is Admob.

*Admob* Founded in 2006 (on my birthday as it happens!), AdMob is AdMob is one of the world's largest mobile advertising networks, offering solutions for discovery, branding and monetization on the mobile web, serving more than a gazillion mobile banner and text ads per month.

Their growing client list includes a diverse range of Fortune 500 brands like Ford, Coca-Cola, EA, P&G, Land Rover, MTV Europe, Adidas, and Paramount Pictures, as well as publishers that are pushing the boundaries of the mobile web like AccuWeather, BluePulse, CBS Mobile, EA, Flirtomatic, Hollywood.com, Peperonity, and TinyTube. Admob are the primary monetization and acquisition partner for thousands of companies.

Widely recognized as the world’s leading mobile advertising networks, Admob has won accolades from the Mobile Marketing Association, Ad Age, Business Week, Wired Magazine, and the World Economic Forum. Not bad eh!

Russell (genuine old skool mobilist and blogger), Andy, Jonathan and I suspect a few more from their crew will be around to hand out beer tokens and generally chew the mobile fat.

Hope to have more sponsors to announce soon as well! Get in touch if you’re interested

Skål

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CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK  & TWITTER TOO
Join the group or follow us on twitter - you'll be in good company and can keep up to date with Swedish Beers events in London, Sydney and Barcelona.
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Sunday, January 31, 2010

January linkage

I know I haven’t been blogging as much of late. It’s just so much easier to play on twitter. But I’ve made a sort of pact with myself to do more blogging this year and better capture some of my thoughts, projects and reading. I can’t promise I’ll keep it up mind, but let’s see how we go…

There’s a new UK Strategy Group which is looking at the Future of the Internet. Details about this Technology Strategy Board initiative is here. This is as much as I know about at the moment, but it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on.

Victor Keegan’s (no relation!) view of the upcoming challenges for the mobile phone including LBS (location based services) and metadata so that we know more about where we are and who we are to give more relevance for mobile services.

Nice use of SMS for customer service by La Trouvaille restaurant in London’s Soho is noted here.

I’m pleased to be the first Female Friday interviewee for GomoNews. The fairly in-depth interview is here outlining my journey into the mobile world, what I think of mobile marketing and, in particular, the role of SMS and mobile internet.

I’ve been travelling a fair bit too. I had the pleasure of speaking at Hostelworld’s annual international conference for hostel owners in Dublin last week. Cian from GomoNews was in attendance so he captured my keynote speech including tips and hints on how to do mobile marketing on a tight budget. As an aside, Hostelworld has launched its iPhone app which has done amazingly well since its recent launch.

A comprehensive article on the smartphone market by Guy Agin. Well worth a read to put the different smartphone vendors and platforms into some kind of perspective and redraws the mobile platform map and explains the graph below in more detail.

Conceptual design and thinking behind a ‘five year phone’. Food for thought, especially after our Mobile Monday London goes to Brighton event on sustainability in mobile back on 18th January.

Preparing for Mobile World Congress

Yes, it's that time of year for folks working in mobile when it's all about Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. I've had a bunch of expo passes to give away, courtesy of the lovely folks at BlackBerry who were our lead sponsor for Heroes of the Mobile Screen conference http://mobileheroes.net. I've now allocated all the passes via the Mobile Monday London Yahoo! group, but I'm very aware that not everyone managed to get one so these places will be worth a try to get one:

Android: http://sites.google.com/site/androidmwc/home
BlackBerry: http://uk.blackberry.com/campaign/appplanet/#tab_tab_developerday - click on the tab that says 'no code'
Vodafone JIL: http://jil.vodafone.com/app_planet/

I'll be running Swedish Beers - http://swedishbeers.org - on Wednesday evening 6.30pm until late at Dostrece. Admob - http://admob.com - is our lead sponsor and I'll have more sponsors to announce in the coming days.

More news and info as it comes...

SMS continues to grow in the UK

The Mobile Data Association has released it’s latest SMS and MMS usage figures for the UK. And interesting reading they are too. MMS or picture messaging is still a tiny proportion of overall messaging, but it is there and it is increasing.

According to the MDA, the continued growth of messaging is highlighted by a 2009 daily average of 265 million text messages and 1.6 million picture messages. 2009’s text message total was 96.8 billion (a 23% increase on 2008), while over 600 million picture messages were sent across the whole year.

Seasonal drivers still appear to propel the use of Picture Messaging, with 4.5 million picture messages being sent on Christmas Day itself – hence the spike in traffic in December -  while Network Operators’ figures also indicated an upturn in picture messaging during the recent cold snap. I’m guessing lots of people were comparing the snow in their area with friends and family.

Text messaging traffic over the recent festive period continued to rise proportionately.

Christmas Day    Increase on      NYE/ Day      Increase on 
2009                       2008                       2009/10                  2008
441,805,870          31%                   874,033,799               21% 

Assessing the findings of the MDA’s report, Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, said: "New generation touchscreen handsets and the bundling of SMS messages into many tariffs has made texting easier, and seen its role develop. Now it is not only a convenient medium for a quick chat with friends, but also a way of participating in television voting and raising funds for needy charities. When a powerful call to action is given, the population of the UK often turn first towards their mobile phones." This is borne out with the recent campaigns to raise funds for BBC Children in Need and the DEC appeal for Haiti.

Q4 2009 Statistical findings

Text Messaging (SMS)

Total number of text messages (SMS) sent in:
2009 total 96.8 billion
2008 total 78.9 billion
2007 total 56.9 billion

sms figs 2009 graph

Video and Picture messages (MMS)

radio 1 mosaic mms dayCampaigns like the Radio 1 Free MMS Day appear to have had an effect on the figures by attracting 42,000 messages to the BBC radio station in just 24 hours with viewers contributing to an online mosaic of all their images (moderated of course). Let’s see if MMS continues to grow in 2010. The growth rate between 2008 and 2009 was just 9%, averaging 1.6m MMS per day. However, I’m in no doubt that SMS will continue to grow in 2010 and beyond.

Total number of picture messages (MMS) sent in:
2009 total 601 million
2008 total 553 million
2007 total 449 million

mms 2009 GraphData

 

mms yoy 0809 comparison GraphData 

Source: Mobile Data Association / Text.It