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

Choosing the 1st summer weekend to edit a Carnival of the Mobilists was probably not a great idea at start, but it turned out well for me reading all contributions after siesta in the shade on a Sunday afternoon, with a fine mix of the latest albums of Osunlade, Jaga Jazzist, Terry Callier, Ron Trent & Jerome Sydenham, Hercules and Love Affair, and The Herbaliser as a background… laid back and inspiring!

Luckily there were not too many entries this week due to the fact that many mobilists have changed the “blogging from home” to a more “hectic travelling the globe” lifestyle. Ubiquitous computing has progressed tremendously but hasn’t yet provided us with the perfect tools to keep the blogging up to speed from wherever we are.

Not too surprisingly more than half of this week’s contributions are on the “Location-Based Applications and Services” topic. Better get used to the coming hype words, since they’re going to be everywhere the coming months/years… Geotagging, location tracking, Assisted GPS (AGPS), location based advertising (of course!), location based aggregation, cost per location, zone detection, location based social media, location stamps, location reporting strategies, discovery, sensoring, geocaching, spatial data, geographically-oriented communities, location-based (life) streaming, social mapping or geo-social networking applications, etc.

Realising how advanced we may be with our ideas and technology these days, I still had to wonder where this week’s contributors actually lived? So, how come no-one is using an online tool to know about one’s location? How about then using this on the mobile?

This brought me to the idea of creating this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists map so you can read the entries browsing the map or just by reading this post. If you find out you’re near to one of the mobilists, who knows you might soon bump into him/her

But hey enough now as an introduction… let’s hear it from the mobilists themselves!

Read all this very interesting and insightful posts on LBS:

Mobile 2.0: Addicted to LBS by Tarek Abu-Esber (London, UK)

Top 10 Location Based Startups to Track by Zhou Wenhan (Singapore, Republic of Singapore)

Add context to your photos with Geotagging by Sachendra Yadav (Hyderabad, India)

Convergence or cooperation? by Igor Faletski (Vancouver, Canada)

Has Google won the location battle already? by Andrew Grill (London, UK)

Which GPS Reporting Strategy is Right for You? by Patrick Brannan (St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

Check also my contribution this week on this low-tech location-based urban travel guide from Louis Vuitton, called the Louis Vuitton Soundwalk.

My take is that location itself will become obsolete soon, it is something technical the user doesn’t really want to know about, unless he/she needs to read a map… But what about the many people who can’t read a map? Voice-activated GPS is one of the widely used GPS solutions, but what about all the services being build around locations? Who is around, interesting things to do, places to visit, find places? Top down information vs. bottom-up user-generated content?

I believe it’s more important to develop services based on discovery, but linked to your social network of friends, and contacts who can tip you on the best stuff and who can leave valuable comments about places and events - it’s about the value and quality of the recommendation. That was probably one of the missing pieces in Nokia’s LBS strategy and why Nokia bought Plazes.

Other topics this week:

Mobile Workforce

Hiring Opportunities and Redundancies in the Converged World of Telecoms and Mobility by Justin Oberman (New York, USA) and pointing to an Interview by Ajit Jaokar (Oxford, UK)

Mobile Advertising

Interesting presentation on Using mobile social networks to target advertising… one day by David Cushman (London, UK)

And more on context: NFC interaction by Barbara Ballard (Lawrence, Kansas, USA) and must read on Updates from mobile phone researcher Jan Chipchase by Bryan Alexander at Smart Mobs and Rob Knight entered this Video Interview with Ray Haddow and Tom Farell from Nokia.

And last but not least the ongoing discussion on Mobile Browser vs. Native Applications:

Browser as an application platform by Gábor Török (Miskolc, Hungary)

Apps on smartphones = Geek. Apps on Facebook = Fun. Why? by Dean Bubley (London, UK)

When Will Facebook Take Apps Mobile? by Carlo Longino (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)

I also wanted to inform that Mobile 2.0 Europe is now fast approaching. Tickets are selling fast, so if you’re interested, don’t wait last minute to order your ticket, we’re heading for a full house. You can check the full program and complete list of speakers.

You can also follow latest Mobile 2.0 news on Twitter.

Also of your interest might be the Mobile 2.0 link exchange and discussion room we created on FriendFeed. When this goes mobile, it’s going to be next place to be Subscribe and join here - http://friendfeed.com/rooms/mobile-2-0

That’s it for this week, I learned something more this weekend and got to know some bloggers I haven’t heard about before, that’s what it’s all about, right?

Monday, June 23, 2008. Carnival of the Mobilists 129 edited by Rudy De Waele (Barcelona, Spain)

Next week, Andrew Grill is hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists at http://www.andrewgrill.com/blog

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted at Ubiquitous Thoughts and edited by Mark van ‘t Hooft, from the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University.

As usual, some great posts about anything mobile from around the blogosphere, head over to Ubiquitous Thoughts.

The first Carnival of the Mobilists of 2008 (#105) is online at Mobile Point View. Head over and read Paul Ruppert’s exciting post!

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is edited by That Canadian Girl Véro. Check edition #94 hosted for the occasion at Taptology. As usual great posts from some really great bloggers writing on anything mobile.

This edition also includes a sneak preview for Carnival readers to have an early look at the Taptu mobile search beta, before their public launch anytime soon now. But you’ll have to head over to find out about the details

This week the Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Abhishek Tiwari in sunny Santa Cruz California. Check edition #92, as usual great posts from some really great bloggers writing on mobile related stuff.

Next week, the carnival is hosted by Tomi T. Ahonen at Communities Dominate Brands. Note that we always need volunteers to host, so don’t be shy about stepping up. Hosts get great exposure and extra traffic that week - and many new readers will stick around if they like what they find. To qualify, you will need to have submitted 3 posts to the Carnival. Check the host schedule and send your request and date you would like to host to Judy Breck at jbreck AT nyc DOT rr DOT com.

Labor Day in US today, a national holiday celebrating workers and the labor movement, but nor for Mobilist Dennis and his editing of this weeks’ Carnival of the Mobilists, where he prefers to celebrate the labor of love that mobile bloggers put into their posts every day. RESPECT!

Dennis did a great job resuming the weekly showcase of the best recent mobile phone related posts from around the blogosphere for the eighty-ninth edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists, if you want some interesting views and opinion about what’s happening in the convergent area of the web and mobile, this is your weekly must read!

This week’s excellent with lots of opinion on Nokia’s Ovi launch from last week, iPhone (still HOT) and posts on entrepreneurship, new business models and mobile society. Check it out here.

“Coming to us from Egypt and hosted this week by Tarek Ghazali, Carnival of the Mobilists 81 is a Pharaoh-style midway of the best mobilists blogging of the week. An echo of the collection spirit of the Library at Alexandria, this Carnival 81 surely has the Ptolemies smiling in their sarcophagi.” (from mobili.st website)

Knowing that summertime is here for many amongst us to take some well deserved rest, this Carnival period is also ideal for newcomers to jump in and host one of the Carnival’s during summer. Carnival reading is known to be ideal just before a relaxing summer nap or siesta, so grab this moment to show your talents in writing on the evolution of the mobile phone. You can participate in moving the tradition forward and making your own mark with the best writing on mobile. Read How to Host a Carnival of the Mobilists and check our host schedule with available dates to host; for more information and details you can contact Judy directly here.

This week’s Carnival is up and running at twofones. Buddy Greg Clayman did an excellent job! As he mentions, the goal of the carnival (and of blog carnivals in general) is to expose the reader, to other mobile-focused bloggers that you might enjoy.

For more details on the Carnival of the Mobilists and schedule of past and future hosts, please visit: http://mobili.st/

Carnival of the Mobilists no. 73 is up at Xen Mendelsohn’s Xellular Identity. I haven’t been able to participate neither this week neither some previous issues, I’ll try to catch up the coming weeks… Once again this is an excellent edition on some of the best blog writings on mobile technology and lifestyle of this week. So no time waste anymore here, head over to Xen’s blog!

Text only version of the Carnival of the Mobilists this week at All About Symbian. Rafe Blandford in his own style, sets the right tone for another qualitive issue. With 19 entries there is a whole range of topics from contextuality to the wonderful world of Oz. Head over for a round up of mobile writing from around the web this week in Carnival of the Mobilists 66!