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I spend some time in Amsterdam for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition for Dutch mobile startups, combined with a presentation I gave at MobileMonday Amsterdam. I have been nicely surprised by the quality of the local startups  presenting in the competition, I can’t say much about them yet… the winners will be announced shortly and will present at the coming MOMO event at the PICNIC conference.

MobileMonday Amsterdam #7 on Value was a GREAT event. The MOMO team has been building reputation since their kickoff event in June 2007 with Jyri Engestrom, putting together quality events ever since. I have been around seeing many MobileMondays a bit everywhere but MoMo Amsterdam is definately one of the best events in Europe focusing on mobile specific topics. What makes this a good event is the original venue and the TEAM working in perfect symbiosis with clear objectives to produce exciting events and not afraid to take risks trying out new concepts.

This time Raimo, Yuri, Claire, Maarten, Marc and Sam created a circle in the theatre for the first part of the event to stimulate audience participation. The discussions were in Dutch, the statements challenging and a bit controversial (user value vs. shareholder value) - why not? I particulary liked the discussion on the bankrupcy of a promising Dutch mobile startup, called Skoeps, as a learning experience towards the community. Wrong timing (flat fees not yet in place), contrary shareholder interest and not enough user base to create a user-driven news content site I believe were amongst the reasons the company didn’t make it.

The 2nd part included keynote presenations by myself, buddie Ajit Jaokar and Yme Bosma from the biggest social network in The Netherlands Hyves (5 million active users!). Ajit gave another interesting talk on what he expects to become a new boom on - non-voice - devices.

Yme presented (in Dutch) the coming rollout of the Hyves mobile platform, including rich adressbook (presence, status, profile, content, etc), communication options such as voice, sms, notes, www, blog, chat, video, photo, email, money, etc), location-based (cellid & GPS), bluetooth for physical identification in public area’s and multiplatform (J2ME, Symbian, Windows Mobile & iPhone). Yme and his team are very ambitious about the mobile platform, expecting mobile interfaces to be the dominant acces method on their platform in a couple of years. Note that Hyves was originally intented as a mobile social media platform years ago before its actual internet succes.

You can view the presentations of Ajit and Yme on Slideshare. The complete Flickr set of the event can be seen here. I’ll post my presentation in another following post.

After successful Mobile Jam Sessions at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and CTIA in Las Vegas, Caroline Lewko of the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) is organising the 3rd Mobile Jam Session for CTIA’s Wireless and IT Show on Friday, September 12, 2008 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Mobile Jam Session is a day to connect developers to industry leaders with an open agenda that inspires new ideas and innovates solutions within the mobile ecosystem. Check the pictures from the previous sessions in Barcelona and Las Vegas.

The day includes:

• An unpanel discussion
• Improv sessions led by developers and industry leaders alike, where everyone gets a chance to be heard and have their questions answered
• Developers pitching their applications
• And a Wrap party!

Topics we will likely cover includes:

• Specific topics such as mobile payments and messaging
• Developer resources such as certification, porting and developer programs
• Tips on penetrating the big guys and getting to market.

Attendees must be registered for CTIA, with a minimum of an Exhibitors Pass.  You can register on the CTIA site and get one, you can get an exhibitor to offer you one, or you can contact WIP for a special exhibitor rate for developers and emerging companies.  For $1600 you receive a 5X10 square foot booth that is complete for you to move in. Find out details of this offering here:  http://www.wipconnector.com/pavillion.php

More details and updated info can be found at the event website, be sure to ‘Request an Invitiation‘ to be able to attend, it’s free!

Jam on!

The next Mobile Monday Barcelona on May 5, 2008 in collaboration with Forum Nokia covers Mobile Development and will explore the mobile developer’s ecosystem. The session will include speakers from Forum Nokia, the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform, and will include presentations from Mobile Distillery (France) and IDEAN from Finland. If you’re interested in the next tips & tricks in mobile development, don’t miss this one!

Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.

Speakers:

Jarkko Tolvi, Business Development Manager, Forum Nokia EMEA (Finland)

Ricardo Varela, Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform (UK)

Vincent Berge, Co-Founder and General Manager, Mobile Distillery (France)
A specialist in mobile technologies, especially Java™ Micro Edition and BREW, Mobile Distillery was founded in 2005 to solve the platform and handset fragmentation issue that developers face when developing Mobile content & services. Its software solutions reduce porting cycles by up to 80%, generate cost savings, and accelerate time-to-market of Java mobile applications while ensuring their easy updates to new devices in European, North-American and Asian markets.

Mikko-Pekka Hanski, Director, Business Development, IDEAN (Finland)
Mikko-Pekka will talk about Mobile Platforms and User Interfaces. Each platform from S60 to Android has its own philosophy regarding user experience and how user interface is built. Mikko-Pekka Hanski from Idean will present how platforms help developers to create beautiful and ease-to-use user interfaces.

(NOTE: Faraz Syed from Device Anywhere had to cancel his participation this time)

Networking:
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. Book now to avoid being left out!

All details at Mobile Monday Barcelona website.

Here are my Mobile 2.0 slides of the keynote I did last Friday in London at the Over The Air event, a great initiative by Daniel Appelquist and Ian Forrester. Over the Air was organised by Mobile Monday London, hosted by Imperial College and supported by the BBC.

Kudos to the whole team who made this happen, this was more than just a developers’ conference, more than just a workshop or a barcamp… It was a 48 hours of mobile and wireless development experiment bringing together some +400 developers and mobile industry experts with great sessions on various industry related topics… Lots of great people and ideas gathered during these 2 days. Check the Over The Air website to view the presentations from other keynotes and sessions.