Mobile 2.0 ConferenceThe Mobile 2.0 Conference - a one-day event focusing on new Mobile Applications and Services, the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation is happening this year on November 3rd, 2008 in San Francisco. The 3rd edition of this event is once again presented by the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee in partnership with AMF Ventures.

The Mobile 2.0 conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists - you can read my wrapup from last years’ event here.

In addition to our All Day Business Track, we will offer an Afternoon Builder Track which will focus on tutorials and demonstrations needed by developers, designers and entrepreneurs seeking in depth information about how to build a mobile application/service.

Speakers for 2008 will include:

  • Russ McGuire, VP, Strategy, Sprint
  • Ozzie Diaz, Chief Technologist, Wireless, HP
  • Tatsuki Tomita, SVP, Opera Software
  • Larry Berkin, VP, Ecosystem & Business Development, Access Systems
  • Marc Davis, Chief Scientist of Yahoo! Connected Life and Director of ESP
  • Rich Wong, Partner, Accel Partners
  • Tim Chang, Partner, NorWest Ventures
  • Greg Franklin, Principal, IntellectPartners
  • Martin Frid-Nielsen, Founder, CPO, Soonr
  • TBA, Forum Nokia Americas
  • Judy Gibbons, CEO, Mippin
  • Ilja Laurs, Founder, GetJar
  • Omar Hamoui, CEO, AdMob
  • Tony Fish, Director, AMF Ventures
  • Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Gears Mobile, Google
  • John Faith, GM & VP Mobile, MySpace
  • Henri Moissinac, Director, Facebook Mobile
  • Michel Palermo, VP, Service Innovation & Integration, Telecom Italia
  • Maurice Thompson, Director, Open Development, Verizon Wireless
  • Thomas Fellger, iconmobile
  • Kelly Goto, Principal, gotomedia
  • David Wood, Executive Vice President, Symbian
  • Peter Barry, Vodafone Ventures
  • Brian Cowley, President and CEO, adinfuse
  • Christian Lindholm, Fjord
  • Brian Fling, Fling Media
  • Raj Singh, VP of Business Development, Skyfire
  • Jay Sullivan, VP Mobile, Mozilla
  • Venetia Espinoza, Director, Mobile Apps & Partner Programs, T-Mobile
  • Michael Bayle, Senior Director, Global Mobile Advertising, Yahoo!
  • Rick Segal, Partner, JLA Ventures & Blackberry Partners Fund
  • Tom Lee, Director SMB Solutions,Research In Motion
  • Sumit Agarwal, Google, Mobile Product Management Lead, North America

Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad for Startups

The Mobile 2.0 conference provides a platform for pre-A round and A round start-ups focusing on mobile applications & services looking for funding and trade press, tech blogger and early-adopter attention.

Any start-up with a mobile service or application can apply to present, all you need to do is fill-in the startup registration form to apply for consideration. The selected startups will get to present at the Mobile 2.0 launchpad and will also be invited to participate in the -invitation only- investor breakfast.

Deadline for submission is October 3, 2008 at midnight PST.

There’s also a mailinglist to stay updated on latest news. For this edition the ticket price is set to $249.00, you can register with online payment here. I recommend not to wait last minute, seats are limited and this conference has been selling out every year quickly.

The event will be held at the Grand Hyatt, San Francisco and will run from 8:30am to 6:00pm with a reception at the hotel afterward.

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Mobile 2.0 EuropeThe 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.

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mobilewebsummit2.jpgNext 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.

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This week I’m going to spend most of my time in London starting with an event I’m really looking forward to, the Being Digital Mashup Conference on 10th June and organised by Simon Grice and Tony Fish.

The purpose of the event is to debate the commercial, investment and tactical issues that matter when delivering and designing digital services that rely on variety (mashup) of information, data & services. The event has seven themed debates on advertising, identity, content, location, social, retail and search across the important platforms of web, mobile and TV. In each theme there will be leading demo companies showing why it is real and how advanced some actually are. You can check the full speakers list here.

I am not sure if there are still tickets available (I believe the event is - or nearly - sold out). Registration is here.

NOTE: “Being Digital” is also the title of a great book, written by Nicholas Negroponte; it was the book I read in 1995 that spearheaded me inside the digital age!

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Mobile 2.0 EuropeFour weeks to go for the MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference and the program gets more and more exciting. Last week, Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia was added as a keynote and Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations will talk about Social Media as the fusion of mobile and internet, exploring the ties into the Mobile Semantic Web.

More than 70 startups registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe selected start-ups in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) will be announced next week.

The Open Platforms and New Application Areas Panel is also confirmed and will be moderated by Peggy Anne Salz, chief analyst and founder of MSearchGroove

Panelists include:

You can view complete speaker profiles here.

The Early-Bird tickets at € 99 and Standard tickets at € 149 are already Sold out. The next 50 tickets (Standard 2) are available at € 199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included). Late tickets will go at € 299 (prices all excl. VAT). So, don’t wait any longer to reserve your ticket if you’d like to attend. You can purchase tickets online here at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

Some free tickets will still be distributed on the Mobile 2.0 on Twitter channel, also handy to stay updated on latest news and updates on the event :)

Together with media partner TechCrunch, we’re organising a meetup the evening after the event; if your company would like to sponsor this meetup, please contact Mike Butcher or myself for more details. I can’t tell much more as of now, I’ll leave that for Mike to announce, but it’s going to be outside and near the beach :)

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Mobile 2.0 Europe The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is heating up! More than 50 startups have already registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe presenting start-ups will be selected in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) - any start-up with a mobile application can apply. If you haven’t done so yet, you can still apply by filling in the online application form, deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, and Mippin joined us as sponsors to support the event and we’re going to announce some more high-level speakers the coming days.

Please take note that the Early Bird registration closes on May 31 (tickets at € 99,- only!), after that date tickets will cost €149,- (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included).

If you’re a blogger or press and you’d like to attend, please contact me directly.

Follow Mobile 2.0 on Twitter for news and updates on the event.

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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.

The were 21 competition entries for the mobile application prototype competition. The winners were:

* Overall Best Prototype - Mr. Tomm (Future Platforms)
* Best Mobile Widget - Auto Widget Configurator (Owen)
* Best Hardware hack - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Best Use of Multimedia - 21st Century Fridge Door (Orange Pirate)
* Best Use of Wireless, Bluetooth or RFID - Bluetooth FOAF (Owend)
* Most elegant solution - Twitter Client for Windows (Dale Lane)
* Most over engineered - Clever Social Tool (Alex squared)
* Most practical / ready for market - Social Network Open Butler (SNOB)
* Best mobile web application - Browser Sync
* Best design / user experience prototype - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Best Location Aware Award - Capture the Flag (Location based games)

* Audience Favorite - Capture the Flag by the Pink Pirates
And the winners in the unofficial categories were:

* Fun Award - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Most likely the succeed with the CIA - (Social Tracker)

More info on the winners, pictures, and other follow-ups will be posted on the Over The Air website later on.

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Flying in directly from CTIA Las Vegas to London, I’ll be talking at the Over The Air event on April 4 at Imperial College.

Organised by BBC Backstage’s Ian Forrester and Vodafone’s Daniel Appelquist and backed by a lot of industry leading companies, Over The Air is bringing together developers, designers, hackers and entrepreneurs to explore the potential of wireless and mobile devices/applications.

Check the complete list of speakers and schedule here, it’s really impressive and looks very promising. Kudos to Daniel and Ian & team for making this happen, really looking forward to this event.

Expect to see a bunch of sessions as diverse as user experience design as well as some masterclasses/workshops from handset and software companies, including Apple (iPhone), Google (Android), Nokia, Microsoft, Adobe and Yahoo!

Head on over to the Over The Air blog for all the details and how to register…

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Here’s my updated overview presentation on Mobile 2.0 I did last week in Brussels at the Plugg Conference, a great initiative by Robin Wauters. The conference included a Start-Ups Rally won by Viewdle.

I saw many people taking pictures during the presentation :D I you’re one of them, and if you want to share them just ping me if you have some good ones, I’ll be happy to link them and/or share them with my readers.

NOTE: As for the startups represented here, they are only some of the ones I am following. This is not intented as a complete overview but a representation and moment in time. If you’re not included in this presentation you might be in my next one :) Just ping me if I missed you somehow.

Some bloggers reported already (in Dutch) on my presentation:

Tom Wesseling @ Marketingfacts

Lia Vieveen @ Frankwatching

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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!

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