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Today Telefónica revealed its pricing plans for the iPhone 3G, tomorrow available in Spain in over 1.500 Telefónica stores and in 15 other countries. Telefónica is distributing the Apple iPhone in 12 Latin American countries and the Czech Republic. This builds on earlier exclusive, multi-year agreements signed between the two companies in the UK and Ireland, bringing the total number of territories in which Telefónica will sell the iconic device to 16, a combined addressable market of more than 500 million people – making Telefónica one of the leading global distributors of this revolutionary device.

Since the iPhone was launched by O2 in the UK, sales have exceeded all expectations and have greatly fuelled net customer additions, particularly high-end contract customers. Furthermore, the average monthly revenue of an iPhone customer is reported 30% higher than that of a regular contract customer, while the iPhone has generated the highest level of customer satisfaction of any terminal on the market.

Check these latest figures on iPhone consumption in US below by m:metrics (recently acquired by comScore)

Data from comScore M:Metrics confirms that the iPhone (and its associated mandatory data plan) is compelling consumers to consume mobile content by a considerable factor. The table below shows Benchmark Indices between 203 (two times more likely to send photos or videos than the market average) and 1208 (twelve times more likely to listen to music on their device than the market average) for the iPhone versus the market average. Even against smartphones, the rates of mobile content consumption are considerably higher. (please check m:metrics for full details on this survey)

Telefónica is aiming at its more than 23 million mobile customers in Spain, as well as customers of other Spanish mobile operators who switch to Movistar. Basically anyone can get an iPhone (even for FREE in some cases), as long as you are an existing customer or want to become a customer of Telefónica, there are price plans for existing and new customers, individuals and companies. You can consult all current priceplans and offers at iPhone 3G Telefónica Movistar website (http://www.iphone.movistar.es/).

Combined with a voiceplan, the most significant data traffic packages are Tarifa Plana iPhone at 15 euro for 200Mb/month and Tarifa Plana iPhone Plus at 25 euro for 1Gb/month. When a customer exceeds this limit, Telefónica will slow down the user’s connecting speed, which I think is a smarter solution then starting to charge higher without the user’s knowledge. I’m not sure yet about the other options for heavy data consumers like me exceeding this limit, I suppose I’ll have to find it out when my consumption gets there…

But that’s it, I’m sold! I would have bought an iPhone 3G today but I will need to wait untill I’m back in the country next week. With my average monthly bills of around 400 euros (and many times higher) I’m the perfect new client for Telefónica I need to make sure though I get a good data roaming plan with all the travelling ahead the coming months.

What I’m looking forward is to start using the many available iPhone applications, now available through the iPhone App Store; in mobile it’s all about the channeling and the distribution of course!

I can only hope that in the end I will pay less for more data consumption on a better device then Telefónica’s competitors I will keep you posted how that goes!

2007 was a very prosperous and exciting year for mobile technology in general, still we’re just at the beginning of a new era of more magic to come in the mobile and web convergent area’s. So, traditionally I’m writing down 10 Mobile Trends for the coming year, always a good personal excercise how close one is predicting mobile market trends and an indicator of what I think will matter in 2008.

Read my Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2007 and check for yourself my gut feeling on what happened yet and what is still to come. It seems very obvious and easy but predicting trends can be tricky, just try it for yourself! Check also my del.icio.us for some interesting predictions from other technology blogs I bookmarked during holidays. One of my favorite readings during holidays is still Carlo Longino’s and Russell Buckley’s yearly predictions at Mobhappy. Do check them out!

So here are my Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2008:

1. Google’s Android and the Open Handset Alliance will definately take off in 2008. While the iPhone is doing probably the best job embracing mobile and web convergence, the Apple OS is still a closed system and used by a rather small market segment of users. Nokia’s Nseries - though all remarkeable devices - didn’t produce any breakthrough Symbian OS changes last year and is still too buggy to go mass-market - I don’t see my sister or father perform a device software update; which leaves the opportunity for Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get the new Linux-based operating system Android on several cutting-edge smartphones before year-end. Mobile OS, a truely competitive space in 2008!
   
2. The Rise of the Mobile Social Networks. M:Metrics released some promising data mid-2007 on the rise of the Mobile Social Networks. With the big social media networks all going mobile in 2007 (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Bebo, …), this trend will continue to rise in 2008, sustained by more flat rate introductions on different markets.
   
3. Apple will be seriously attacked by the music industry on its own, once disruptive, iTunes business model. 2008 will be the year of further downfall of DRM and the raise of watermarked audio-files. With Sony BMG planning to drop DRM - the last of the Big Four record labels with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI Music, to throw in the towel on digital rights management. The end of DRM might embolden a host of new, online download venues initiated by the Big Four in its searches for a successful digital strategy. Note also the rise of new business models (!) giving away DRM-free, ad-supported music downloads, like the recently founded Rcrd Lbl by Peter Rojas. Read my DRM Free at Last! for a recent overview and links to previous posts on this topic.
4. Telefonica will introduce the 3G iPhone. To be announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February?
5. The return of the Location-Based Services. Since Nokia introduced the Nseries N95 with built in GPS, Location-Based Services are becoming exciting again. A new wave of mobile services and applications build on the location of the user (cell-ID and/or GPS) will see the light this year, driven by the open Google Maps API and flickr’s geotagged photo function. Read also my early 2005 coverage on the formerly known MoSoSos.
6. First iPhone competitors coming to market. Nokia will introduce a serious competitor for the iPhone. It has the hardware manufacturing intelligence and knowledge to come up with its own multi-touch screen interface. Biggest challenge for Nokia (and other manufacturers) will be to keep the OS user-experience as simple as the iPhone. Expect some great innovating devices from HTC too in 2008! (checkout the HTC Touch Dual).
7. Mobile Video Blogging starting to taking off. Though still to be used by early adopters, mobile video blogging tools such as Kyte.tv mobile are already doing a great job with Floobs and KaZiVu also looking very promising (both still in beta), not to forget about YouTube Mobile. All eyes will be on Seesmic however that has the right start-up vibe - instigated daily by its impressive experienced shareholders (and web 2.0 icons) and its very active beta-testers community. Imagining Seesmic to be used on your mobile phone is an easy one, the challenges for Seesmic are to bypass the complex technical issues and delivery of its great idea.
8. Mobile search, as already predicted last year will continue to be one of the most important and most used mobile applications. I keep this one in my list adding that some new players might disrupt the big Search market players, not having figured out the real mobile search issues such as accuracy, context, relevance, latency and the correct display of local and niche results.
9. PRM (Personal Rights Management) and Privacy policies and procedures will be high on the agenda for every entreprise and conscious connected individuals. Already talk of the connected crowds at LeWeb3, opening the Social Graphs might appear cool in your social media community but has to be done right! As a starter, check out Dataportability.org and watch Robert Scoble explaining his recent portability issues with Facebook.
10. Twitter and the breakthrough of the ultimate Mobile Presence Tool. Yes, Twitter is the utlimate mobile presence tool, since it’s the easiest to use (through SMS and mobile web access), and most accurate to stay connected at any time from anywhere… Jaiku has a definately a richer client but Twitter is the most easily integrated into most of your social networks, checkout MoodBlast that can simultaneously update multiple chat clients and web services presence tools. 2008 will also see the rise of lifestreaming apps like Tumblr, surprisingly simple on the web and looks great on your mobile phone.

Some of the downers of 2007:

- the sudden death of great blogger Marc Orchant - my deepest sympathies to Marc’s family.

- the whole blognation’s saga - one nation, many bugs…
- and just recently Om Malik’s heart attack - wish him strength, get well soon, Om!

Definately an urge for all bloggers not to forget about their daily excercise, no less!

I wish all my readers a great and magic 2008!

MobileMonday Madrid is taking off on Monday, October 29 at IE Business School (Instituto de Empresa). The opening event will focus on the Mobile Content topic and hosts for the occasion Hakan Ericsson from Mobile Complete (the MobileMonday “Community Favourite” Global Peer Awards winner), Guillermo Esteve of Vodafone Group R&D, and Karel de Beule from the promising local Spanish Start-up Kimia.

The event is free of charge; you just need to subscribe and confirm your seat. For mTrends readers in the Spanish capital that day, don’t wait last minute to subscribe; the event is nearly fully booked (150 seats available for this event).

Here the practicals:

Date: Monday, October 29, 2007

Location: Aula Magna, Instituto de Empresa

Topic: Mobile Content 2.0

Speakers Program:

Introductions:
Ricardo Pérez - Professor of Information Systems at Instituto de Empresa
Carles Ferreiro / Rudy De Waele - MobileMonday Barcelona & MobileMonday Madrid

Companies:
Hakan Ericsson, VP Sales Mobile Complete (USA)
Guillermo Esteve, Vodafone Group R&D (Spain)
Karel de Beule, CEO & Founder Kimia (Spain)

Networking:
One of the key aspects of the MobileMonday concept is the networking. A networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work.

• 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
• 19h30 Mobile Content 2.0 Speaker sessions and discussion
• 20h45 Cocktail and Networking Party
• 21h30 End

Location / Venue:
MobileMonday Madrid will be held at the in the Aula Magna at the Instituto de Empresa in María de Molina 11, 28006 Madrid. You can check directions how to get there at IE website or download a map.

Location and Directions at Google Maps.

More details at the MobileMonday Madrid website.

While we Europeans might seem envious not being able to get hold of an iPhone immediately, there’s really no reason to be; having a little bit of patience might be beneficial for Apple to learn how people will use the iPhone and for the users to get hold of an improved version in a couple of months.

Don’t get me wrong: while I’m pretty convinced that the web browsing experience on the iPhone is probably the best ever created on a mobile device, there’s also something as being able to acces the content from wherever you are, and this seems to be a minor point of the iPhone - currently only available through AT&T EDGE network, don’t miss Carlo ’s interesting take on this aspect.

FYI: above screenshot taken on a Nokia N95 when browsing the www.apple.com/iphone website, no photoshopping involved

I’m delighted to announce our next MobileMonday Barcelona event, on July 2: we are celebrating our first MoMoBCN anniversary at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). For this occasion we chose one of my favorite topics at the moment: Mobile Web 2.0.

I’m looking forward to finally meet Ajit Jaokar, co-author of the Mobile Web 2.0 book in a session together with Lucia Garate from Vodafone Group Research and Development - to talk about the recently launched Betavine platform; Patrick Lord from Mobiluck, and Carlos Domingo, General Director of Telefonica I+D to present and discuss their ideas on this topic. I will moderate a short panel discussion afterwards.

This next event will be held at the CCCB Auditorium and there’s a celebration drink at the wonderful “Pati de les Dones” inside the CCCB complex.

Check the MobileMonday Barcelona website for all details on place, timings and bio’s of the speakers. NOTE the new event place and timings!

I’ve been in Italy for two weeks now and my notebook hasn’t seen a network cable since for Internet connectivity. While I’ve been desperate when it came to finding an Internet connection during this year’s 3GSMWorldCongress in Barcelona due to the prohibitive pricing of Spanish operators for 3G Internet access, Italy is the true leader of 3G Internet connectivity!At least two operators in Italy offer 3G wireless Internet access for their prepaid customers. I’ve bought a prepaid SIM card from WIND, and activated the Mega No Limit. For 30 euros I got 5 Gigabyte (!!!) of data a month. I’ve been trying very hard to get anywhere near this limit in the past two weeks but despite being online for about 15 hours a day for company Intranet access, web browsing, blogging, podcast and videocast downloading, etc. etc., I haven’t managed to get beyond 900 MB yet.I was a bit scared at the beginning as in other countries I am quite used to having only a small volume for an affordable price which should not be overstepped. I still do have this feeling at times and I keep checking the remaining volume for the month. However, it keeps decreasing at just the rate my mobile phone shows on it’s internal counter as well. These days, I just use the 3G Internet connection like I use my ADSL line at home. 40 MB video podcast? No problem, ‘save as’, and off I go.

UMTS offers a top speed of around 400 kbit/s. When I used the offer for the first time when I was in Italy about one and a half years ago, I always got this speed whenever I started to load a page. Times seem to have changed a bit as the network has become much more loaded these days. Most of the time the speed is lower when I start do download something and only increases after a little while. Especially in the evening hours, I usually do not get this top speed at all. While this could be because the base station also servers many other Internet users it could also be that the voice traffic in Wind’s UMTS network has increased over the past 18 months. It’s difficult to tell and it’s probably a bit of both. But what’s for sure is the fact that UMTS networks in Italy are definitely not idling around anymore producing hot air only.

In the picture on the left you can see the equipment I use at the moment. My bridge to the (Internet) world is a Nokia N93 which acts as a wireless modem for my PC. Good it has a handsfree mode because it happens quite often that I get a call while it is connected to the PC. Quite nice to be on the phone and browse the web simultaneously.

The next MobileMonday Barcelona event on Monday, April 2, focuses on the current state of the mobile gaming industry.

Speakers include Nicolas Nova (Switzerland) - researcher at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne), Maarten Noyons (France) - Managing Director, International Mobile Gaming Awards, Ignacio Cavero (Spain) - President and CEO, LemonQuest and a speaker from YDreams, Spain/Portugal.

(introduction below by Fabien Girardin from the Interactive Technologies Group, UPF University)

Currently, the mobile game market is highly dominated by games that have an easy gameplay, few simple rules and do not require special skills to enjoy. These games are mostly clones of successful casual games such as Minesweeper or Tetris.

However, the future of mobile gaming seems to rely on new types of gameplays that embed the new capabilities of mobile phones to sense their context. Like the newly released and successful Wiimote, mobile devices become sensitive to movements (e.g. Nokia N5500), engaging players to physically move as part of the gameplay. In addition, the emergence near-field communication (RFID, Bluetooth, QR codes) and location-aware technologies enable new types of scenarios that link virtual worlds with the players’ physical surroundings. For example, multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.

The increasing contextual and proximity awareness of mobile devices provide new opportunities for players to engage in collaborative or competitive game settings. In contrast to this pretty picture, many issues such as the operators walled gardens, the size of the screens, network quality and coverage as well as the processing power of the mobile phone challenge the development and deployment of these new types of games. Finally, the Economic future: who is going to pick up the fragmentation and the distribution challenge? Where is the 8 bn mobile gaming market?

As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available.

More details at MobileMonday Barcelona website.

This is Sophia Berglund. Right now she is 25months old and growing so fast in her capabilities in communication - already she can muster small sentences in English, Korean, Japanese and some German! She can even translate! Sophia can create lines, shapes and forms by way of painting her communication…

But what makes me the most excited is seeing her grab technology with an incredible desire to learn and experience - she explores, she examines, pushes, prods, de-constructs the technology in some cases (i.e. she breaks my expensive “toys”)

Part of her 1st and 2nd years were spent in S.Korea where she was born into one of the most advanced mobile “handphone” cultures in the world - literally 5minutes after birth her first ever picture (and video) taken by a mobile/handphone and sent to our friends and relatives, she made her first mobile location based phone call at 5months and at 6months she was surfing mobile internet and watching mobileTV! She had her first “co-location” experience in 2006 when friends “broadcast” the 비 / Bi (Rain)**concert live over their handphone to my handphone - Seoul - to - Jeju…

Sophia is growing up into a digital world. Already she has a real-demo phone given to her by a friend at LGe - which she mimmicks her immediate social circle in making calls and surfing data.

Wow! Yes but today we question what is next - we talk of ubiquotous computing, mobile internet, mobile2.0, mobileTV, mobileGaming, mobileAdvertising, mobileMarketing, Location Based Services, Bluetooth, Proximity Marketing, smartphones, convergence, m-YouTube, moblogs, iMode, 3G, 3.5G, CDMA, FOMA, RFID, Flash-Lite, SVGt, mobile-Image recognition, mobileCameras, mobileVideo, Vlogs, iPhone (iPhone aka LG Prada), mobile UI, touch-screens, thumb-tribes, handy, handphone, keitai - blah blah blah and all of this jargon and often mind boggling marketing “psycho-babble” has made me think - where is it all going - how much “smarter” will the next generation of “phones” like my SonyEricsson P990i become - how much more can we cram into one single device!?

How many more times can my P990i crash - a victim of its own “smartness” - Yet I put up with it as when my P990 is alert and working it blows my mind with all of its functions and how they are symbiotic* to my daily needs - I can Wi-Fi (well not in Germany they lock their Wi-Fi connections), Google movie reviews before entering the cinema, take videos and pictures and Flickr them, I can use Googlemaps when lost or curious, watch movies, RSS Feed news and blogs, email, VoIP, Messenger, listen to music, video call whilst on business trips, bemuse my wife, and entertain my colleagues like I am a mobile guru! Seriously though what is next?

So - I think “convergence” will continue as a trend for maybe the next 2-3 years - not only in hardware but in software and services that we can ever expand the phones capabilities - with it computing power, battery power and size! Multi-media will play a big role - motion graphics - advanced touch-screens (iPhone aka LG Prada)
smart phones that know what you use and like and build a UI around your user preferences - broader personalisation with iTunes music and video, enhanced imaging and editing functions, more Bluetooth functions in urban locations, free ubiquitous Wi-Fi - oh I could go on with a list of endless options I could do with…

Sophia in 28years time will be 30 and the date will be 2035 - what do you the mocom (mobile community) think will be next and what will “mobile” have become - we all see attempts at mobile technology in clothing, e-paper (with Wi-Fi connectivity), cyborg like integration of receivers/chips into our bodies, organic and nano-technology - but really I would love to hear your thoughts!

* BTW thanks to Bear in the Big Blue House
on Disney Playhouse for re-introducing me to this brilliant word “symbiotic” Children’s TV is great!

**비 / BMW Meets Truth**
and www.bmwmeetstruth.com

MyStrands just got its Social Player signed by Symbian yesterday for general release. It is a music player for mobile devices (Symbian Series 60, 3rd edition) with two main characteristics: it is a music discovery tool and a strong community builder. Watch the video demo here below and try it yourself, it’s great!

The player works over a 3G connection (if you can afford it!) and Wireless LAN, it gives you real-time recommendations of songs, you can stream clips of the recommended songs to your device, and learn more about them on MyStrands mobile website. The MyStrands Social Player helps you discover new people by telling you who else in the community is currently listening to the same song and view that person’s profile (unless it has been set as private). Check what I’m listening to here.

It is probably the most advanced music and community mobile app around - I haven’t seen anything like it, a real social community and music discovery tool, you can even build playlists on the go and tag your music, dig?

Check out all details at MyStrands blog.

Spotted at Jason Delport’s Mobile Observations:

At the end of last week there was a lot of talk in the blogosphere about the YouTube Mobile site going live and I was looking forward to putting it through it’s paces. I tried it in Firefox (without UA spoofing) and got a blocked message and so I tried it on my N70 and got the same message. I gave up on it but this morning I thought I would try again and was surprised to find that it worked in IE7! It’s still blocked in Firefox and on my N70 but you can see from the image below that the site is actually up and running. I’m not sure what’s going on with the blocking, seems inconsistent to me, why allow IE7 and block Firefox? The site is built in XHTML-MP and the videos are encoded in what looks to be 3GPP. I am looking forward to wasting a few travel hours watching videos on my mobile in the near future.

Oh dear, I will have to block my daughters’ 3G phone access again I’m afraid when this is finally going to be anounced. Parents, watch your bills the coming months! The content owners will be winners again since users want to connect to this kind of content from wherever on whatever device, doesn’t matter really the network as long as it’s affordable… the cost is going to be key to acces that content and to be part of creating some. Short video content is ideal for mobile but I don’t have to repeat all this things again here, no?