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Carnival of the Mobilists No. 144 is Here

2008-10-06T15:47:41+02:00

Welcome to the 144th edition of carnival of the mobilists! The Carnival is an old tradition where the best mobile posts of the past week are linked from one blog (more on this mobile tradition here).

Mobile Devices

Let's start with my pick for the best post of the week. This week’s winner is Andreas Constantinou from VisionMobile who asks if an open Android can result in a closed phone?

Ram Krishnan from Mobile Broadband Blog talks about the new product category of netbooks (Mobile Internet Devices or Ultra-Low Cost PCs) and the role mobile operators will have in their marketing.

James Cooper from mjelly shares his notes from an event held in London on mobile platforms "Android, Symbian and iphone" with some useful stats on iphone usage, and other general points about mobile platforms.

Mobile Advertising

Scott from Mippin Blog debunks two myths regarding the US mobile internet penetration and mobile advertising.

Andrew Grill brings his summary from a recent mobile advertising roundtable and also addresses some of the reasons why mobile advertising has been slow to take off.

Igor Faletski from MobScure shares some very interesting measures of sent SMSs by location which provides very interesting insights about the possible triggers for sending messages.

Marketing

Rudy De Waele from M-Trends brings an amazing review of the South Korean mobile market.

Ajit Jaokar from Open Gardens raises the subject of pricing in regards to location based services and weighs the implications.

C.Enrique Ortiz from About Mobility shares his presentation about mobility, context and the human psychology when developing a mobile application. (I wish I was there to hear Enrique present this slide-deck, as presentations are usually more than what is written on the slides).

Other

Not really 'mobile' yet very interesting for us 'techies'; Sarah from Really Sarah Syndication raises some interesting questions about the possible relation between technology and the development of self-control skills.

This is all for this edition... Next week, Carnival of the Mobilists #145 will be held at mjelly with James Cooper as host. For information on how you can participate by submitting a link to the Carnival, and/or becoming a host, visit the Carnival of the Mobilists website.

Upcoming Events: Mobile Web Megatrends (September, 2008)

2008-08-10T19:41:00+03:00

My friend Ajit from Open Gardens is organizing a conference called Mobile Web Megatrends. The event is on Sep 8 2008 at the pacific film archive theatre at the University of California Berkeley. Attendance costs $195.

Speakers include companies who are doing some cutting edge work in the Mobile Web space including Nokia, Opera Mobile 9.5 , ESPN mobile , Oracle atomdb , Admob

Startups – Moblast, , skyfire, cellfire, mynumo

Thought leaders and bloggers - Ajit Jaokar, Michael Mace , Barbara Ballard , Mike Rowehl Operator strategies - OMTP Bondi , Gemalto SCWS

For more information and registration, please visit Mobile Web Megatrends conference.

Updates

2008-08-10T14:22:51+03:00

It's been a while since my last post here and many of you have sent some worried emails asking what's going on...

I am happy to share that the reasons that kept me from blogging for a while were good ones; I joined Comverse as a Marketing Manager at a new product group, offering a mobile advertising solution for mobile operators. Also, as you probably read, I joined the GigaOm network, and will review companies and trends related to the mobile market.

You can also read my first post about Mo’Minis.

-Xen

Carnival of the Mobilists No. 122 is Here

2008-05-05T00:15:00+03:00

Welcome to the 122th edition of carnival of the mobilists! One of the things that I like best about the Carnival, or hosting it, is that it provides me with the opportunity to take a moment and read some very well written and interesting ideas about the mobile world. So sit comfortably and get ready for a blast of the best mobile writing of the week :)

Let's start with my pick for the best post of the week: this week’s Post of the Week is sponsored by AdMob, the world’s largest mobile advertising network. Our winner will receive a $100 coupon for mobile advertising with AdMob. Take advantage of this opportunity to drive traffic to your mobile site. This week’s winner is Tomi T. Ahonen from Communities Dominate Brands who published a though piece on Mobile as 7th Mass Media. Really worth the reading!

Mobile Advertizing

Andrew Grill asks if we're "walking the talk" when it comes to mobile advertising, and explains how he was able to become a mobile advertiser and publisher overnight, enabling him to walk the talk when it comes to mobile advertising.

Paul Ruppert at Mobile Point View contributes a podcast interview with Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile Marketing Association. Go listen to Paul’s interview with Laura covering her disappointment regarding the lack of significant mobile marketing announcements at CTIA, predictions on the growth of the mobile advertising market and how she dances between the legs of elephants!

Mobile Payment and Plans

Karen Webster from Catalyst Code takes a deeper dive into mobile payment and into why there are only 400,000 contactless terminals worldwide - a tiny sliver of all merchants - and why that differs from past experiences.

Dennis from WAP Review takes a look on AT&T’s $20 per month unlimited data plan Pay As You GO

Mobile – the Future

Ajit Jaokar from Open Gardens seeks for your input regarding which mobile/Wireless legislation is needed?

Judy Breck from Golden Swamp covers innovating news about a professor of mechanical engineering who developed a new device that uses mobile phones to make medical imaging much cheaper and more accessible to the poor.

Mobile Resources

James from Mjelly lists web forums that cover the mobile arena and provide experts knowledge.

Chetan Sharma from Always on Real-Time Access publishes a white paper covering the patenting process, written by Carlos Villamar and Chetan Sharma.

Mobile Content and Aplications

Jamie Wells from Mobilestance covers an activist-focused initiative that opens door for innovative marketing applications. Fluid Nexus, a decentralized (peer-to-peer) mobile messaging application that runs over Bluetooth, promises to do for SMS what Napster did for the .mp3 - democratize a key distribution channel by decoupling the medium from the message.

Michael Mace from Mobile Opportunity reviews a series of changes to Adobe’s free mobile flash application.

Igor Faletski from mobscure shares what kind of mobile content excites people.

Mobile Messaging

Barbara Ballard from Little Springs Designs makes an interesting point about the difference of the US, European and Japanese markets for SMS and voice.

Mobile Handsets

Ben Scott-Robinson from We Love Mobile identifies a long time consumer trend, i.e. the desire for a simple phone...

Debi Jones from Mobile Jones presents a few ways to improve the audio of the N95 using an external microphone

Timothy Yordy from I’m Not A Rat shows how to create a mini SD Wi-fi Antenna out of a plastic easter egg for his Motorola Q9m.

And a little treat before we conclude this edition: Scott had a little bit of fun trying to guess when 100% phone penetration will be reached.

Well, that concludes this edition. Have a great week and hope to catch up next week with edition # 123 of the Carnival of the Mobilists at GoMo News.

Super Tuesday - Super New Mobile Apps!

2008-02-05T16:14:35+02:00

A big day like today brings cool new mobile apps!

First, let me share my own news:

As you know, I recently joined MyFrame Inc., who offers you a cool new mobile application called Flixwagon. For those of you who don't know what Flixwagon is, Flixwagon enables anyone with a capable 3G/WiFi mobile phone to broadcast live videos to the internet.

So you're probably saying, "ok, new mobile gig, where's the news?". We partnered MTV. Today, MTV's street journalism team will broadcast from 23 states to ThinkMTV using Flixwagon. Throughout the day, MTV will regularly break into programming and showcase news features from the live reports.

James Whatley from SpinVox shared that that SpinVox has partnered with WNYC Radio to enable greater listener interactivity during the station’s ongoing coverage of the multi-state primary Super Tuesday. Voters will be encouraged to contribute thoughts, comments and observations by speaking messages to a special phone number set up for the radio station. Those messages will be converted into text by SpinVox and will dynamically become a part of the coverage in real time. Hockenberry and Udoji will report on voter sentiments and read select text on-air.

Interesting to see how new means of communication take part in one of the biggest political events. Will follow closely.

Mobile Sunday Barcelona

2008-01-29T21:56:00+02:00

Rudy just published the list of people who are going to attend the Mobile Sunday Barcelona gathering "an unofficial, informal and generally cool and funky gathering of mobile bloggers and their chums - has already over 100 people subscribed to the wiki!"

I plan to attend, hope to see you there! :)

Chating with the Guru

2008-01-22T12:14:47+02:00

Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with the Symbian Guru, who is also a dear friend of mine, a.k.a. Ricky Cadden.

The topics ranged from creating and sharing media to how exactly our mobiles fit into our lives, and how they might help us connect better locally. Our conversation is now available as a podcast so go over to Ricky's to listen to it.

Mobile World Congress

2008-01-17T15:49:41+02:00

Hi friends,

I am attending the Mobile World Congress Barcelona (February 11-14 2008) with Flixwagon.
If any of you wants to meet, you are very welcome to drop me a line: xen [dot] mendelsohn [at] gmail [dot] com.

See you in Barcelona! :)
Xen

Links for the 14.1.08

2008-01-14T23:22:00+02:00

Carnival #106 is Here!

2008-01-14T15:01:31+02:00

Welcome to the 106th edition of carnival of the mobilists!

Sit comfortably and get ready for a blast of the best mobile writing of the week :)

Let's start with my pick for the best post of the week:

Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens asks us will P2P IMS applications take off or will there be only Web applications? Very interesting food for thought and some questions for you at the end of the post.

The M Generation

Starting up a new year, two bloggers focused on the M generation; Paul Ruppert from Mobile Point View analyzes today's teens who "socialize from the confines of their bedrooms".

James Whatley from SMS Text News invites us to think about the children of tomorrow; they will probably ask: “Hey Ma, why didn’t you keep a blog?”

Howard Rheingold of SmartMobs reccomends on a forthcoming book by Rich Ling called "New Tech, New Ties", and is "the best book so far about the social effects of the mobile phone, in the context of sociology and social capital theory (and is very well written, as well)".

Mobile Web

Jim Durbin from Situational Marketing shares his thoughts about the mobile web and asks if it is a thing of the past.

Andrew Grill asks will the 3G mobile broadband “dongle” kill the WiFi hotspot market?

And on the same subject, Dean Bubley from Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless lists what needs to happen in order that 3G-embedded PCs might become popular.

Mobile Apps and Handsets

Dennis from the Wap Review took Yahoo! Go 3.0 and the revamped Yahoo mobile portal, both of which are completely widget based, for a test drive.

Raddedas from Techype has his own rants about Yahoo! Go 3.0.

Tarek Abu-Esber reviews the best phones of 2007… and his winner is….?

Vero Pepperrell from Taptology brings 8 recommendations of 8 great ways to show your mobile phone some love in 2008 .

Well, that concludes this edition. But, bofore you leave, an announcement from Rudy:

Rudy will announce during next week another MobileMonday Peer Awards that we'll be hosting during the Mobile World Congress at Espacio Movistar on February 11 and he's organizing a Mobile Jam Session together with Caroline Lewko (from Wireless Industry Partnership), a day barcamp/workshop for mobile developers on Tuesday 12, all websites to be launched during next week. Also you're invited to the MobileSunday Barcelona. Stay tuned @ mTrends.

Have a great week and hope to catch up next week at Mobhappy :)

Links for the 10-1-08

2008-01-10T23:50:00+02:00

Video Content Not Only For The Masses

2008-01-08T16:32:24+02:00

Chris Albrecht from NewTeeVee reviewed a new start up called Big Think. According to Chris,

"Big Think wants to become the YouTube for ideas. The site has experts like professor Steven Pinker, author Deepak Chopra, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer answering big questions on topics like identity, politics and media. The video answers to these questions are supposed to kick-start discussions with people like you and me who can post responses or comments."

"In a world in which everyone’s a pundit, it’s nice to see someone recognizing the value of experts, but I just can’t see Big Think taking off. It’s just…so…heavy. Questions like “How are language and identity connected?” or “Has capitalism run mmok?” require too much brainpower when I’m multi-tasking with my computer, and the answers are snippets, so the topic can’t be more fully explored. While I haven’t watched all the videos, the only “fun” on Big Think I came across was “Writing for the Harvard Lampoon,” and “What is the most lavish party you have been to?” It’s like I’m reading cartoons from The New Yorker — clever, but fun in a way that’s elitist. Ultimately the whole thing feels like a big Ivy League club that I’m not welcome in."

Putting the writers' negative impressions aside, Big Think have a very smart segmentation, aiming to the higher-end of the population and not necessarily to the masses. When evaluating start ups or new websites, one must differentiate between the relevance for him\her and the relevance for the target segment. Although Big Think might make some people feel as if they are in a big Ivy League club to which they are not welcomed, many others might feel at home. This is exactly what segmentation is all about – specifically tailoring products and services for designated populations. Of course people who do not belong to the relevant segment might feel left out. Otherwise it wouldn't be segmentation at all. This is precisely the reason why adults might feel left out when their children play with Barbies, or action figures. Or why career driven businessmen might feel out of place in a cooking course. Good segmentation. That's why.

The segment of choice for Big think, the higher-end, is a segment that spends hours online and is always on the search for quality resources and quality content; i.e. the high-end segment is also part of the addressable market for video content. While this segment might have been consuming "light" content, it is well-equipped to enjoy more complex messages and will probably appreciate "heavy" content.

Some examples of successful segmentations have already made their way into marketing textbooks (such as manufacturing different car models to address different segments). Video content as a market has already reached the masses (YouTube, MetaCafe etc'), therefore segmentation is the natural next step. Lately we started to see some players addressing specific segments, like 5min and now BigThink. So, if you feel left out, don't worry – some player will target your segment soon enough.

This post was originally posted on The Flixwagon Blog.