mTrends – mobile media lifestyle trends – m-trends.org

The next Mobile Monday Barcelona will explore the magic about Mobile Widgets. The event will be held on April 20 in the Sony Room of Barcelona Activa.

Mobile widgets are mini applications that sit on a handset and can be personalised to retrieve relevant information from the web. They provide ‘always on’ services based on the information users want to receive, and are a new touch point for how consumers use the mobile internet. Widgets are based on web code rather than on specialist programming language, which makes it possible for both professional and amateur developers to tap into their potential.

Invited are some of the most active and knowledgeable experts working in the Mobile Widgets area including Paco Marín Garcia, Senior Manager Vodafone Widgets; Jure Sustersic, Business Development Manager at Forum Nokia; Marc Rougier, President and co-founder of Goojet and Ricardo Varela from Yahoo! Mobile.

During this event, there’s an opportunity for widget developers to demo their widgets in partnership with the Betavine Mobile Widget Competition. As you may know Betavine, a Vodafone Group R&D lab, is offering mobile developers a chance to win £20,000 in a new mobile widget competition. The Betavine Mobile Widget Competition is designed to encourage developers to unleash their creativity and experiment with the technology, competing with their peers for a first prize of £20,000 – check the website for competition details and how to participate. All developers submitting widgets will also have an opportunity to make their entries available through the Vodafone Widget Manager Beta application, which is currently being rolled out across a range of 10 popular S60 handsets in Germany, Italy, South Africa, Spain and the UK.

Check mobilemondaybarcelona.com for details to attend and participate.