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Coming to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress? Don’t miss the MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona 2008! Sticking with MobileMonday’s recipe for success, the event will cook up a bunch of fresh innovations mixed with honest feedback and a dash of fun. Served with plenty of juicy networking at the NEW Espacio Movistar in Barcelona on Monday February 11 starting at 2:30PM.

The MobileMonday Peer Awards are recognised by the industry as one of THE interesting events in the mobile industry. Last year’s Barcelona Peer Awards event attracted 23 competitors, the MoMo community award went to Mobile Complete, the audience award to Plazes, and the expert jury award to Realeyes 3D. Check the Peer Awards 2007 Flickr Group pictures and winners’ announcement here.

Mr. Pekka Ala-Pietila, former president at Nokia Corporation and currently chief executive officer of Blyk Corporation, a virtual mobile operator in the UK, will be the keynote speaker.

The event concept is pretty similar as last year: every MobileMonday chapter is invited to nominate one startup to the Peer Awards Barcelona 2008. This year, we’ll divide the start-up finalist presentations in two categories: early-stage start-ups (founded in 2007, early-stage financing) and emerging start-ups (founded in 2005 and after, inbetween Series A & B funding). The organizing committee and jury selects the finalists to present at the awards event. Entrance into the running is free! Check the Peer Awards website for details.

There will be three awards in each category: jury, audience, and community (MoMo chapters). This year’s winners at the MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona will also be invited to participate in the Innovation Pad activities at the MobileMonday Global Summit in conjunction with the World Congress on IT in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 18-22, 2008.

Master of Ceremony is once again Mrs. Caroline Lewko, from the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP).

The jury consists of some of the most recognized mobile industry experts and thinkers, currently confirmed:

• Carlos Domingo, General Director, Telefonica R&D;
• Ann Mei Chang, Mobile Engineering Director Google;
• Bena Roberts, Founder and Chief Analyst at BKI Media / GoMo News;
• Russell Buckley, Managing Director, AdMob Europe / Vice-Chairman of MMA’s EMEA;
• Carlo Longino, Mobhappy;
• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group;
• Madamohan Rao, Editor, The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook;
• Jed Rice,VP, Market Development, Skyhook Wireless;
• Peter Vesterbacka, Founder, Some Bazaar;
• Jouko Ahvenainen, Chief Operating Officer, Xtract;
• Michael Wendell, General partner, Nexit Ventures;
• Sirous Kavehercy, Strategist and Consultant, Market Development Director at Acision;

The MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona 2008 are being organized collaboratively by the MobileMonday community and hosted by MobileMonday Barcelona. The event is free but you must register in advance since the 800 places will go quickly.

2008, 3GSM, Announcements, Barcelona, blyk, espacio movistar, events, global peer awards, global summit, innovation, it world congress, kulala lumpur, Mobile Apps, Mobile Content, Mobile Events, Mobile Games, Mobile Monday, mobile startups, mobile web, mobile world congress, mobilemonday, mobilemonday barcelona, mobilemonday spain, momobcn, movistar, mwc08, mwc2008, Operators, peer awards, peer awards barcelona, social media, startups, telefonica

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!

2008, 3G, 3g iphone, Analysis, Android, apple, bebo, convergence, Cool Devices, drm, emi, facebook, floobs, google, htc, innovation, iphone, itunes, kazivu, kyte, kyte.tv, leweb3, location based, Mashup, mobile, mobile 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Apps, Mobile Blog, Mobile Content, Mobile Games, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile marketing, mobile music, Mobile OS, Mobile RSS, Mobile Search, mobile video, mobile video blogging, mobile web, mobile world congress, mobileweb, mowser, Multi Touch Screen, myspace, NFC, nokia, Open Handset Alliance, Operators, os, personal rights management, Predictions, prm, rcrdlbl, seesmic, social media, sony bmg, startups, taptu, telefonica, touch dial, Trends, universal, user experience, warner, watermark, web 2.0, wireless, youtube

Here’s some thoughts and a short wrapup of the Mobile 2.0 event I helped to organize in San Francisco. It was the second time this event took place, organised last year by Mike, Daniel, Gregory and Peter. For this years’ event, they asked me to join the team and I’m really glad I took the decision to participate, I truly believe this is only the start of more interestig things to come produced by this quintet

The event was really great! Being part of the organizers committee and having a good view of events happening around the globe, this is a really exceptional event, connecting the transitioning and convergent worlds of web and mobile; exceptional because some of the best heads in mobile are spending a day together discussing and exploring the opportunities and threats of what we call the next generation mobile services. Unique since it brings together both a local (Silicon Valley) and a European crowd, something essential in todays’ global economy. Innovation is happening everywhere, the world is flat.

Understanding the potential of the mobile device as a connector of objects and people in the near future is a must and I think this event is the best I have seen in this area, covering essential topics such as Social Media, User Experience, Usability and Design, Disruption, Emerging Technologies, New Business Models brought by thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists.

I was not alone with my thoughts since Tomi T. Ahonen send us this text note during the event: “Wow, this room really holds probably more of the true influencers of the actual future of mobile than any other event I have ever attended. Impressive!”

And what about these notes from Oliver Starr, who was live blogging for Blognation during the conference:

There’s one last disruption I’d like to mention and it might be the most sublime disruption of them all. The power that will be realized by the 250 plus individuals that took that time and invested the money to spend a day deep in discussion about the next generation of mobile. The cumulative increase in knowledge realized by the attendees at this event will spread out into the world in waves. Perhaps some will be small ripples, a few rolling whitecaps, but combined, we are looking at a tidal wave of new knowledge, shared ideas, and new alliances that have the power to change the world we live in profound ways.

Knowledge is not power. Knowledge wielded effectively is power. As I look around the room as we reach the waning moments of the 2007 Mobile 2.0 Conference, I can’t help but wonder if the people in this room realize the incredible, explosive potential that each of them now has should they apply in any measure the intelligence they’ve gained in the ten hours spent here today.

I specifically like the size of the event, crowded with some 250 attendees, speakers and press yet small enough to have a chat and connect with nearly everybody present.

Here’s a set of resources from the event I could find of as of now. You can track the ongoing discussions using Google Blog Search tagged “Mobile 2.0“.
Richard MacManus has been LIVE blogging the event (incredible how fast he writes!):

• Mobile 2.0 - The 7th Mass Media & Business Opportunities
• Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 1
• Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 2
• Taptu Launches New Type of Mobile Search

Oliver Starr’s live posts here on blognation.

Mike Rowehl’s Mobile 2.0 wrapup.

Dennis from WAP Review has an amazing writeup covering absolutely everything top to bottom.

Russ McGuire’s review on Mobile 2.0: Mobile Internet vs. Mobility

Barbara Ballard posted about how many in the audience were using laptops.

Tony Fish pointed out the Mobile Web 2.0 list of resources setup in netvibes.

Enrique C. Ortiz quick review.

Kelly Goto has a detailed post from the fireside chat.

Carlos Domingo posted his draft panel notes here.

Atakan Cetinsoy from MyStrands blogged his impressions here.

Marc Davis Flickr pictures ZoneTagged Mobile 2.0

On top of the reviews, some interesting discussions are heating up, starting with Rob Tiffany’s complaints why Windows Mobile was not used or not even mentioned during the event… Read Enrique C. Ortiz on spot reply to that question.

You can view my introduction to Mobile 2.0 on Slideshare; check also the Google’s move into mobile slide exchange project we just launched, together with Raimo van der Klein.

I created a Flickr group here, open to anyone. Anyone who has pictures of the event and a Flickr account, please subscribe to the group and forward them to the group from within your Flickr account.
I wanted to thank again our sponsors of the event: Nokia, Shozu, Vodafone Betavine, Taptu, Jamba, Mippin, Webwag, Rulespace and Swisscomm for the excellent wi-fi connections. Without them making this happen would not have been possible. Hope to see you all next year again!

I’ll be back with an update on conversations and posts around the event next Monday in the Carnival of the Mobilists # 96 which I’m hosting again here at mTrends.

conference, convergence, Conversations, Cool Devices, Daniel Appelquist, event, events, Experience Design, gregory gorman, innovation, iphone, lbs, location based, Mashup, Mike Rowehl, mobile, mobile 2.0, Mobile Apps, Mobile Content, Mobile Events, Mobile Games, Mobile Lifestyle, Mobile OS, Mobile RSS, Mobile Search, mobile tv, mobile video, mobile web, mobile2, mobile20, Operators, peter vesterbacka, Read/WriteWeb, rudy de waele, sanfrancisco, sf, startups, Trends, usability, user experience, voip, web 2.0, wi fi, wrapup

What I like most in Nokia’s strategy is its constant ability to look forward and move ahead with the changes. Nokia Flagship Store announcements already positioned Nokia with an independant retail strategy, it’s obvious that once there, there’s a different world on top of selling devices…

There has been a lot of fingertip heating since Nokia launched its Ovi Internet Services, a predictable, but smart move by Nokia for regular mTrends readers The idea is to pull the Nokia Music Store, N-Gage, Nokia Maps, and all future Nokia services into a single gateway of integrated service offerings. You can view yesterdays’ webcast anouncements here.

Nokia has been very active in the convergent area’s of internet and mobility services. With a solid 38% marketshare (some 900 million active customers!), the company has always played a leading role in the mobile value chain and knows a lot about its consumer habits. Nokia also has been releasing some really great N-Series devices since last year, the experiences gathered from those popular high-end devices are now finetuned and sharpened resulting in 4 new mobile devices (to be released before year-end).

I have been lucky to be able to experiment with Nokia Maps and I like the service a lot, it’s actually an awesome experience available on a mobile phone. The N95 with its build-in GPS makes geographical search really context relevant and opens the path for a lot of new kinds of services linked to locations. Personally I believe more in a user-driven community services and tools build model for the future such as Plazes and Dopplr build on Google Maps api’s but time will tell which services consumers will finally choose for and use.

The N-Gage portal is all about Nokia’s next-gen games (reserve your player name now!) where game fans will have more and more options to play multiplayer games in a constantly connected world - Instant Media Now! Web 2.0 has had a huge influence on the game development with regards to user-generated content, social networking and general connectivity. Watch Digital Chocolate in this next-gen game content space, not to underestimate the - also yesterday anounced - Sony-Ericsson Playstation Phone, yes… real device convergence is happening!

Another great move into internet service offerings is that Nokia and Microsoft have joined forces to provide customers with a new suite of Windows Live services specifically designed for Nokia devices. Starting today Nokia customers in eleven countries with compatible S60 devices can download the new suite enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Spaces. Smart move knowing there’s some 465 million Microsoft Messenger clients today!

The downside of that deal (and biggest surprise to me yesterday) was not the anouncement of the Nokia Music Store itself but the decision that Nokia will use Microsoft PlayReady technology for “flexible access to digital entertainment“. Flexible? How flexible is the next question to me then, while Apple unveiled a higher quality DRM-Free Music with EMI on iTunes in April, Nokia goes the opposite direction with Microsoft?

I tried to find more detailed information on how restrictive the DRM will be but couldn’t find anything relevant but this Microsoft PlayReady White Paper, despite the many anouncements yesterday. BoingBoing reported the new music store will allow for over-the-air downloads,

“currently priced at 1 Euro a song and 10 Euro-a-month all-you-can-eat subscriptions that will work on your PC. (It’s not entirely clear if you’ll be able to download songs to your PC on the all-you-can-eat and also sync them to your Ovi-compatible phone. The verbiage I’m seeing is “streaming,” so it seems unlikely.)”

Most probably Nokia will decide on a country-per-country basis, depending on the distributor. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound as a pirate protecter but I’m just worried as a consumer. mTrends readers know about my rants and experiences with this topic (for an overview check my DRM Free At Last! post).

I’m completely in favour of the OPEN DRM model (buy once, use everywhere!): I buy the digital content once but I am able to carry and transfer the song/video/movie everywhere on my different devices and pc’s and share it with my family and friends. Companies really need to learn to TRUST the consumers, illegal downloading always existed and will always exist in a minor form but as a consumer I can only urge to give us a fair DRM, especially for those consumers who want to buy digital content.

One more example here below of how DRM-restrictive content works for the consumer - and then I really hope I don’t have to write on this anymore

On my summer holidays, besides my fully stored N95, I took a 2GB USB-stick with me with full of music (legally bought CD’s imported as mp3’s) to be played wherever the occasion appeared. Now when compiling my summer music collection, I mixed up with some songs I bought on iTunes… At a certain moment, at a party, someone was asking for some kind of artist I had on my music-stick, we copied it to the iBook available connected to the speakers, when everybody around the pool was excited to hear that song, the machine responded “need permission to play this song, please fill-in your password” - hell, we weren’t even connected to the internet. Now, you think this is fair? Flexible? Helping the artists? Create more business? Come on (big) guys, please get real!

NOTE: it would be great if any Nokia or Microsoft rep could provide some details on the DRM restrictions that will be used (or not) using PlayReady

5310, 5610, Analysis, convergence, Cool Devices, devices, Entertainment, Games, Internet services, location, maps, mobile cell, Mobile Games, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile music, mobile web, Music, music phone, N Series, N81, n95, nokia, Nokia Music Store, Operators, ovi, phones, s60, series, social media, Trends, usability, XpressMusic

I know how mTrends looks great on a PSP and on a Nokia N800; I haven’t seen my blog however on the iPhone, but I suppose it looks ok - the iPhone features Safari, the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device.

UPDATE => Kelly sended me some shots of mTrends on the iPhone, looks pretty cool, I cannot see from the screenshots if all my sidebar widgets work and if the feed subscription functionality works automatically in the mobile Safari browser… Anyway thanks, Kelly!

Since it’s going to take a while before everyone is able to buy an iPhone, and before device manufacture competitors catch up with Apple, browsing the Mobile Web stays somehow a non-standardised fragmented experience for most people. I have been writing about this confusion before, now it was kind of weird reading this ’strikethrough’ story from Scobleizer on how the iPhone gets confused with the mobile version of the Google Reader. Note that the Safari browser shows the desktop web pages - the ‘real’ internet, as most people know it; Robert just got confused with the different - mobile web - URL’s to browse to.

Now both ways to acces the internet will most probably have to live next to eachother on mobile devices since no real solution is in sight to converge the mobile web as ‘one real web’. There’s the ‘full’ browsing experience possible on the high-end devices like the iPhone, PSP’s and for example the Nokia N800 and then there are the ‘adaptive’ browsers that will adapt at it’s best the existing web page to your phone, like Nokia S60, Openwave and Opera browsers and others like Google Mobile transcoding normal web pages so they fit the mobile screen.

But what about the Mobile Web users?

To my view there are 4 different types of mobile web users to distinguish (some with a combined use), people who:

1. want to read their favourite feeds (through mobile browser or standalone applications)
2. browse websites and pages (using Nokia, Opera Mini or Safari browser on the mobile)
3. search from within a browser using Google Mobile, Yahoo! oneSearch, …
4. use standalone apps/tools to connect to people or communities like Jaiku, Twitter, Fring, Google Mobile Maps, etc…

Currently I use 1 and 4 the most, since browsing the web on the mobile is simply still too annoying and slow and searching on my phone not context relevant for me as it is now; I read feeds and use standalone apps to connect to people and find locations, that’s it. With the coming of more and more webapps, RSS tools and communities going mobile the coming months - YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Netvibes, and alikes - some of them already there - the ways to get to those apps will become even more diverse, not to mention about how to handle correctly Mobile SEO.

For a simplified any (txt) feed ‘works on any device’ solution there’s still the real pre-cursor of the Mobile Web, Winksite. David Harper writes in this Love the Mobile Web post, how Winksite makes it easy to publish mobile Internet sites and build simple mobile connections via mobile phones:

“Winksite is the first standards compliant mobile Website builder that also includes RSS-driven content deployment and mobile-tuned community features such as forum, chat, and polls. This approach delivers fresh content, fast-loading screens, and universally accessible community features to you and your audience. The Winksite service is a free and fully hosted solution. No software install on your phone is necessary to view a Winksite powered mobile site. Learn more about how it works.”

I’ve had mTrends on Winksite since a while now just because my blog was always accesible on most phones, now for anyone who wants his internet blog or pages to be displayed correctly and available on ANY phone, I think Winksite is still the best option. Check below how MobileOK my Winksite blog is using the dotMobi’s MobiReady Report generator.

BTW: great tool! I like the way it displays information on pricing and speed of different networks to acces your mobile web pages.

To close this post, I would like to add this paragraph from Dave’s post on The mobile Web is not just for phones anymore:

“Gamers and their WiFi connected version of the Internet have been largely ignored by Mobile & Web 2.0 publishing and community platforms. We’re changing that. Whatever you choose to build at Winksite will now be served up optimized and fully functioning to the Sony PSP browser and Nintendo DS Lite Opera browser over WiFi connections. With the DS-Lite in mind we provide a fast loading and readable version while in overview mode. The PSP is delivered a version that eliminates the horizontal scrolling (and reduces the vertical scrolling) required to read posts and chat with your friends.”

Right attitude, Dave. Keep going!

What about you? I’m interested in your experiences and opinions

.mobi, Analysis, browser, browsing, convergence, dotmobi, iphone, mobile 2.0, Mobile Apps, Mobile Blog, Mobile Games, Mobile RSS, Mobile Search, mobile seo, mobile video, mobile web, mobile20, mobileok, mobileweb, n800, nokia, opera, QR codes, safari, scobleizer, SEO, usability, w3c, web 2.0, winkiste

Got invited last week by Nokia for their new mobile sharing community platform called MOSH. I must admit it’s great to be invited to all exciting Alpha and Beta mobile testing, still it’s quite difficult to test them all in-depth with a lot of workload on the shelves these days. However, as with anything good in life… quality, curiosity and surprise always make a good cocktail and make you want to try out things immediately before others.

MobSharing, a term originally coined by Mike Evans in September 2005, didn’t figure in my 2007 predictions but was already mentioned as a future trend in my 2006 predictions and now it’s finally here from Nokia Still in closed Alpha, but with the advantage we won’t have to wait another couple of years for it to get a critical mass…

“Create, Upload and Share all of your mobile content”:

MOSH is a content sharing site where community members upload, distribute and manage content to be viewed and enjoyed on mobile devices. With MOSH, anything from applications like mobile games, to videos, blogs, songs or photos are now accessible and distributable on your mobile device.

How does it work?

There are three key elements to MOSH:

1. A website
2. A mobile website
3. An application for mobile devices (available for download on Nokia devices only)

The website is your main source for accessing the wide range of content available through MOSH. It is here where you can create your profile, upload content, manage your collections and specify which selects to send to your mobile device as mobile feeds.

The mobile website is where users with both Nokia and non-Nokia devices can access mobile feeds and view the MOSH service.

I played with it for the first time today and the interface looks simple & smart, ideally for the creation of mobile social media: users can create ‘collections’ around topics, tags or keywords to organize content which can be ranked, ‘raved’, filtered and shared.

While the service is optimized for use on Nokia devices, the service is compatible with all mobile handsets, provided they support the kind of content you are downloading and that you are able to access the Internet.

One quick remark: how do I know the content or apps I’m uploading is compatible with what kind of devices? Creating some groups of phone categories might be handy for the users here.

I’ll keep you posted with more feedback and mosh moves of course.

Announcements, convergence, Cool Devices, Friends, Fun, Games, innovation, mobile 2.0, Mobile Apps, Mobile Content, Mobile Culture, Mobile Games, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile music, Mobile RSS, mobile video, mobile web, mobsharing, mosh, nokia, Predictions, social media, Trends, Ubiquitous Devices, we media, web 2.0

I wanted to give you a short debrief on the excellent MobileMonday Barcelona sesssion we had on Mobile Gaming and Beyond. Despite Semana Santa (a lot of locals out of town) and the pouring rain, we had the auditorium nearly filled with mobile enthusiasts not wanting to miss a word from this months’ interesting line-up of speakers.

Nicolas Nova kicked-off straight with his presentation, titled “Sinking one’s teeth into new metaphors for mobile gaming” and was basically a critique of the current state of mobile gaming. Instead of describing 3D on cell phones, location-based gaming or augmented reality, he encourages mobile game designers to consider 3 other avenues to explore, such as the use of motion/mobility instead of immobile situations (see image).

David Camps from Intermón Oxfam presented a mobile game, called Refugee. The videogame has the objective of raising awareness on the lack of security and adequate aid suffered by millions of people trapped in forgotten crises such as Darfur. In it, Assia flees from the drought in her country and she must face up to violence and the lack of water and food. These are skill challenges, as in other games, but inspired from the real life of more than eight million refugees and close to 25 million displaced persons all over the world, of which 80 percent are women and children. The game ends giving you the opportunity to request more attention from the Spanish government to these crises. The funds raised with the downloads of the videogame – which costs 2.40 Euros – will go to humanitarian aid programs of Intermon Oxfam in the southeast of Sudan, concretely to the refugee camps of Djabal and Goz Amer.

Ignacio Cavero gave us a chronological overview of LemonQuest and its sucessful portfolio including the Ronaldinho Gaucho Street Soccer game. LemonQuest recently announced the acquisition of the Chinese company i4Game, an innovative developer of mobile games and is looking at other emerging mobile markets such as India.

Marta Vieira from the Portugese YDreams explained us about their experience and do’s and don’t of LocationBased-Gaming. Check out their stuff, it’s really cool!

The audience q&a participation was weaker then the MyMobileTV session we had last month, some issues like interoperability of games on other portable devices and the coming of web advergaming players into the mobile market space remained unanswered, as for now.

You can download most presentations of the Mobile Gaming and other sessions at the MobileMonday Barcelona website, you just need to register to the community and logon to the documents section to download the presentations.

Next months’ topic is on Mobile Search and promises another great sessions with confirmed speakers from JumpTap, Taptu, Yahoo! Mobile and Nokia Mobile Search.

Analysis, augmented reality, Barcelona, Experience Design, Fun, Games, ignacio cavero, innovation, intermon oxfam, lemonquest, marta vieira, Mobile Culture, Mobile Games, mobile gaming, Mobile Lifestyle, Mobile Monday, mobilemonday, momobcn, nicolas nova, refugee, spanish startups, startups, Trends, Ubiquitous Devices, usability, user experience, videojuegos, Viral, ydreams

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.

3G, Announcements, augmented reality, Awards, Barcelona, Experience Design, Fun, Games, gaming, lbs, lemonquest, mobile, Mobile Culture, Mobile Games, Mobile Lifestyle, Mobile Monday, mobilemonday, mobilemonday barcelona, momobcn, nicolas, nova, spanish startups, startups, Ubiquitous Devices, Viral, ydreams