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Are you one of those startups that make a difference and you would like to showcase your technology to the ones like Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, Sprint, iFund, Nokia, Microsoft, Motorola, and more? Then you need to apply to present at Under The Radar: Mobility event on November 12 in Mountain View, CA. Submissions are still being accepted, so apply today!

Under the Radar: Mobility is a one-day conference uncovering 32 vetted, test-driven startups that have launched within the year in categories such as iPhone apps, location-based services, gaming, social networking, enabling technologies, and marketing/advertising.

Under the Radar: Mobility is one of my favorite startup events to track innovation in mobile, read my reviews of previous editions here.

I will be there again this year as a judge amongst other mobile industry players, including:

Jesse Money, Executive Director of Product Convergence and Innovation, Verizon Wireless
Stephan Noll, Managing Director, T-Mobile Venture Fund
Chi-Hua Chien, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (iFund)
Scott Ford, General Manager, Sprint Business Development & Sprint Nextel Ventures
Harshul Sanghi, Managing Director, Motorola Ventures
Dan Schiappa, GM - Mobile & Gaming Advertising Experiences Platform, Microsoft
Dave Williams, Senior Vice President of Wireless and Technology, Comcast
Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Ventures
Jonathan Ebinger, General Partner, BlueRun Ventures
Ken Gullicksen, General Partner, Morgenthaler
Eric Ver Ploeg, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners

The event will be moderated by:

Rafe Needleman, Editor, CNET/Webware
Ellen McGirt, Senior Writer, Fast Company
Natali Del Conte, Host, CNET TV & Technology Correspondent, CBS Early Show
Jeremy Toeman, Marketing Consultant, Stage Two Consulting

I’ll be in San Francisco and the valley the first half of November, please do get in touch if you’d like to catch up with me.

At the end of a decade during which the internet revolutionized our lives and organizations, the network is now moving beyond the browser, invading objects, cities, toys, cars or medical devices. Where will the next big changes happen? What are the world’s most innovative people working on right now?

LIFT Asia is a three-day event taking place in Korea on September 4, 5 and 6 to answer these questions with a global community of doers and thinkers, featuring an innovative format made of scheduled talks, open sessions, and artists creating a special atmosphere to facilitate inspiration and networking.

LIFT Asia will take place at the international Convention Center ICC on the beautiful Jeju Island in Korea (located in the center of Northeast Asia and lies equidistant between South Korea, China and Japan).

The event will feature:

• Talks covering topics like urban technologies, online worlds, virtual money, new lifestyles and robots, featuring speakers like Joonmo Kwon (CEO of Nexon, the world’s largest online games company), networked cities visionaries Jeffrey Huang (EPFL), Yang Soo Yin (The Living) and Adam Greenfield (Nokia design), I-mode inventor Takeshi Nastuno, Takeshi Natsuno who works on the robots of the future, Gadget loving and Emmy award winning American guru Dan Dubno, and legendary LIFT speakers like Bruce Sterling, Bruno Bonnell, Frédéric Kaplan or Jan Chipchase.

• Community speeches where participants can freely present their works and ideas inside one of the open rooms.

• Interactive art installations curated by the Nabi Art Center, creating a unique experience based on inspiring and engaging activities to explore the new reality of social interactions in the digital world.

The full program is available here:
http://www.liftconference.com/lift-asia-08/program

Kudos to the organizers for putting such a neat line-up and program together.

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!

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!

The first Mobile 2.0 Europe belongs yet to the past. We had a great event with lots of interesting sessions and speakers from different area’s in the mobile ecosystem. Seventeen promising startups came from all corners in Europe to present their new ideas in mobile.

Below are some links with reviews and ongoing conversations:

IN ENGLISH

Some notes from the Mobile 2.0 conference (Nokia Conversations)

Europe’s Mobile startups come together (TechCrunch)

(The Next Web)
Mobile 2.0 Europe: exploring the future of mobile
Mobile 2.0 Europe: best-of-class startups

Mobile 2.0: Rummble, Zipiko and Dial2Do shine, but venture capitalists express caution (VentureBeat)

Mobile Europe 2.0: Recreational Mobile Search, Intention Broadcasting & Much More; The Future Is Here, But Will MVNOs Like Blyk Drive It? (mSearchGroove)

Mobile 2.0 Europa - It Takes Two To Tango (Inma Martinez - Shift6)

mobile 2.0 - VC panel summary (Tony Fish)

Mobile 2.0 - The Conversation in the Wireless Industry Becomes A Shouting Match (Max Niederhofer)

(Dan’s Blog)
Open Business Models at Mobile 2.0 Europe
Early Stage Startups at Mobile 2.0 Europe
Mobile 2.0 Europe Kicks Off

Rummble at Mobile 2.0 Barcelona (Rummble Blog)

Mobile 2.0 Europe is over.. (SPRX mobile)

Mobile 2.0: following up on the operator perspective (blog cpinto)

Zipipop wins at Mobile 2.0 Europe (Arctic Startup)

The Electric Knife Syndrome (Charlie Schick)

Shout’Em after Mobile 2.0 Europe (Five Minutes)

Recap: Mobile 2.0 Europe (Cultureslurp)

Rummble: A Unique Play On A Location-Based Mobile Search Engine (GPS Obsessed)

[tce] mobile 2.0 europe takedown (Vitor Domingos)

Live from Mobile 2.0 in Barcelona (Federic Dummeny)

There is no such thing as mobile internet - Mobile 2.0 Europe (Local Search)

Mobile 2.0 Europe -Wrap-up (Ric Ferraro)

IN SPANISH

Mobile 2.0, la evolución del acceso a la red y sus contenidos (BRM)

Mobile 2.0: las operadores se defienden (CanalPDA)

Mobile 2.0 Conference en Barcelona (digitalismo)

Final del Mobile 2.0 (Unkasoft)

Resumen del Mobile 2.0 (Carlos Mantero)

Resumen del Mobile 2.0 (Carlos Blanco)

(OJOmóviles)
Congreso Mobile 2.0 en ESADE Barcelona
Mobile Social Media
Sesión Statups
La perspectiva de los inversores de capital riesgo
Startups Pre Series A
La perspectiva de los operadores
Startups Post Series A
Modelos de negocio abiertos

IN CATALAN

Mobile 2.0 Europe (alCim)

IN DUTCH

Mobile 2.0 Europe – Een terugblik op de toekomst (onetomarket)

PICTURES

TechCrunch Euro Tour - Mobile 2.0 Europe (Mike Butcher’s set on Flickr)

Mobile 2.0 Europe (Rudy De Waele’s set on Flickr)

VIDEO

Mobile 2.0 Europe on Blip.tv

Mobile 2.0 Europe #m2eu (QIK videos by Mark a.m. Kramer)

Revolt at Mobile 2.0 Europe (Mike Butcher)

NOTE: links to discussions are added daily so check this post at Mobile 2.0 Europe website for updated links.

A couple of days before the event, some 150 companies registered to attend MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE event, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, mobile application and service providers, bloggers, press and web technologists. If you want to attend the event to connect to industry leadership and broaden your C-level relationships, you can still buy tickets here.

NOTE there’s also a Mobile 2.0 Europe TechCrunch Party at the Shôko Lounge Club in front of the beach, all details about this after event meetup here.

Here’s the list of the companies attending the MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference in alphabetical order:

24 Access Solutions
7 Syntax
Acquamedia Technologies
AdMob
Ajuntament de Barcelona
aka-aki networks GmbH
Alcatel-Lucent
AlpinaSearch
Altaide Valley
Alumnus Software
AMF ventures
antrak capital
Atlas Venture
Atos Origin
Avui
AZ Interactive
Balderton Capital
Bango
Barcelona Digital
Barcelona Media
Beabloo
BeepMarketing
Between Brackets
bluenove
Blyk
Bullnet Gestion
CanalPDA
cellity AG
Centro Español de Servicios Telematicos
Channer Medianet
cirici new media
Clicmobile
CommonSensus
Comunicano
Coreobjects Ltd
DD&H
Debaeque Venture Capital
Dial2Do
dotopen
Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
eBuddy
Economic Promotion - Barcelona City Council
Eden Ventures
El Paìs
Ericsson
Esade
European Commission - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS)
Facoria de Canales
Five minutes
Fjord
France Telecom
Futurlink
GeoMe Communications
Getjar
GoodmintonPartners
Google
GSM Association
Halmstad University
Hewlett-Packard
Hiwave GmbH
Ideal Interfaces
Interactive McCann
IT University of Copenhagen
Itinerarium
itsmy.com (Gofresh)
Jaeson Associates
Jupidi GmbH
Kalerion Computing
Kimia
kooaba AG
La Vanguardia
Longreach Mobile
Lorem Ipsum
M:Metrics
Materna GmbH
mikamai
Mobiclip SL
Mobifriends
Mobile Distillery
Mobile Economy GmbH
MobileContact Software
MobileMonday PL
MobileMonday Ltd.
MobiLuck
Motorola
Motricity
mSearchGroove
my247.mobi
MyFrame Inc.
MyVocal
Nauta Tech Invest II SCR
NextWell
Nimbuzz
Nokia
Nova Ventus Consulting
Onetomarket
Orange
Oxynade
Ozmota
Palringo
PBS MediaShift
Peperoni Software GmbH
Plugg
Qelp
Qualcomm
Quodis
Refresh Mobile
Route Forward Ltd
Rummble
Safiratec
Samtel Consultores
Service Innovation and Interaction Design
SFR
Simba Technologies
SMS Text News
Some Bazaar
Spinverse Ltd
SPRXmobile
Stanford HCI Group
Stradbroke Advisors
Sun Microsystems
Sydes nv / Arkafund nv
Ta with you
Taptu
TAT AB
TechCrunch
Telecom Italia
Telefonica I+D
Telefonica Moviles
Telgraph Hill Group
Tertius Advisory Services
T-Mobile International AG
Tooio Mobile
Treasuremytext
Trutap
Trutap Ltd
Uniteddogs and Cats OY
Universal McCann
University of Salzburg
University of VIC
Unkasoft
Valoris
ViaMobility
ViiF Mobile Video GmbH
Vodafone
Webwag
Worldwide Rights Management Ltd
Yahoo!
Yiibu
YouLynx
Zipipop
ZYB

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

Whilst the whole industry is looking at location-based technology solutions as the new nirvana, Louis Vuitton enters the digital mobile space with a series of value-added content products using low-tech location. Creativity at its top!

The Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, a unique location-based urban soundtrack, produced in collaboration with Soundwalk is a cutting-edge audio guide, available in six languages, offerring a vibrant portrayal of three Chinese cities – Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai – following the footsteps of the three greatest icons of Chinese Cinema: Gong Li for Beijing, Shu Qi for Hong Kong and Joan Chen for Shanghai.

Ideally for people travelling to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, each hour-long soundwalk features a story whose narration perfectly synchronizes with the itinerary - the voice of the narrator geographically guides the physical visitor in real time through an area of a city or a district - accompanied by the signature sounds of the city.

Original soundtracks composed by Kubert Leung and Albert Yu. Shan Sa (”The Girl Who Played Go”) and Mei Feng (up-and-coming young Chinese author), have written these journeys much like film scripts —- subtly blending reality and fiction to offer a cinematic experience in the heart of the city.

Each Louis Vuitton Soundwalk are available in six languages: English, French, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. Each Louis Vuitton Soundwalk can be purchased separately in six different currencies: 17 USD, 12 EUR, 8 GBP, 2 000 JPY, 140 HKD, 130 RMB.

The mobile Java MIDP 2.0 client, powered by Clicmobile, will be released on July 4th; this version adds exclusive mobile content such as images, texts and maps to the audio lifestyle experience.

The Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee announced the selection of the presenting start-ups at Mobile 2.0 Europe on July 4 in Barcelona. Some 70 mobile start-up companies applied to present at Mobile 2.0 Europe conference. The committee was delightfully surprised with the quality of the ideas and technology of the start-ups coming from many different corners of Europe and the world.

Here are the selected start-up companies.

PRE SERIES A companies

kooaba (Switzerland) - Mobile Image Search
Mobiluck (France) - Mobile Location-based IM, Chat and Social Networking
Secufone (Netherlands) - Mobility and Safety
Unkasoft (Spain) - Mobile Advergaming
ViiF (Germany) - Mobile Entertainment Community

POST SERIES A companies

Futurlink (Spain) - Proximity Marketing
Nimbuzz (Netherlands) - Mobile IM and Text Message Service
Mippin (UK) - Mobilizing the Web
Palringo (UK) - Vocal Instant Messaging
Taptu (UK) - Mobile Social Search

Early-Stage companies

The presenters in this category will be announced the day of the event as to maintain the suspense.

During the event, all panel participants and organizers will vote their best Start-up in each category; the winner in each category receives an invitation to present at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco on November 3, 2008.

Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia will introduce the conference with a keynote.

Participants will enjoy C-Level speaker and panelist participations from other mobile industry players, such as AdMob, AMF Ventures, Atlas Venture, Bango, Blyk, Debaeque Capital, Fjord, Getjar, Google, itsmy.com (Gofresh), Nokia, M:Metrics, Orange, Stradbroke Advisors, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Trutap, Vodafone, Yahoo!, and ZYB. The sessions will be moderated by some of Europe’s finest bloggers including Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Peggy Anne Saltz (MSearchGroove) and Raimo van der Klein (SPRX Mobile).

Check the full speaker list and program agenda here.

There is a lot of interest from the industry to attend this event. Early-Bird tickets at €99 and Standard tickets at €149 are already sold out. Currently, there are some 20 tickets left at €199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included), after which tickets will be on sale at €299 (prices all excl. VAT). Attendants can purchase their ticket online at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

We are also organising a meetup with our media partner TechCrunch, the evening after the event; please contact Mike Butcher or info@dotopen.eu for more information on this event.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Nokia, Palringo, Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, eBuddy and Mippin for their invaluable support.

Next Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be at the Mobile Web 2.0 Summit 2008, organised by Osney Media in London. If you haven’t seen the program yet, it’s a real impressive line-up of speakers, topics and panel sessions includin participations from AdMob Inc, AMF Ventures, Arena Mobile, Bango, Bouygues Telecom, BuddyPing, Dopplr, Fjord, Flirtomatic, Futuretext, GoMo News, Google, GyPSii, Hutchison Whampoa Europe, mBlox, Mocospace, MEF, Mozilla, M:Metrics, Nokia, Orange, Ovum, Swisscom, Sponge, Telefonica O2 Europe, Vodafone Group, Xtract, Yell and Yahoo. Check the full agenda here.

I’m doing a panel with Tom Hume from Future Platforms and Monty Munford from Monty’s Gaming and Wireless Outlook on this year’s hits and misses in mobile technology. That should be fun!

Lots of known industry folks, I hope I can spend some time with the people I didn’t had a chance to meet yet. So, ping me if you’d like to catch up with me.