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

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.

The next Mobile Monday Madrid on April 21, 2008 will dive into the wonders of Mobile Messaging 2.0. This time invited speakers are Jan-Joost Kraal, VP of Mobile of eBuddy (12 million unique users! see recent TechCrunch coverage), Tim von Toerne, founder and VP Product of Hamburg-based Cellity and Enrico Noseda, Skype’s Director of Business Development Telecoms.

“The mobile messaging market, like many others, is in a perpetual state of change, with phenomenal growth that has taken directions few could have predicted. What started a few years ago as the emergence of groundbreaking market shifts is now coalescing into a new vision for using and enabling mobile messaging technology –– Mobile Messaging 2.0. (…) It also incorporates an emerging set of principles that will guide operators in the development of next generation mobile messaging networks. At its heart, it is a fundamental shift away from ‘network defined messaging’ to ‘user defined messaging’ that has the potential to benefit everyone.” (from the Mobile Messaging 2.0 White Paper from Airwide Solutions)

About:

eBuddy is a free web based messenger that enables you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, MySpace and AIM buddies. When you’re on the road, outdoors or traveling you can use the mobile version of eBuddy to chat with your buddies. Every mobile device that supports xHTML or WAP can be used; this includes Cell Phones, PDA’s, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS! Check out the Mobile page for more info.

In order to enable mobile phone users to connect to the world, Cellity introduces its new mobile email feature. At Mobile Monday Madrid, Cellity will showcase the latest addition to cellity Communicator, a mobile application for powerful mobile communication. The feature-rich Java software bundles very useful functions like free text messaging with up to 2048 characters, traditional SMS for just 9 ct., international calls at up to a 90% savings, easy conference calls and a free backup service over the air. The software is completely free of charge.

Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Skype created a little piece of software that makes communicating with people around the world easy and fun. With Skype you can say hello or share a laugh with anyone, anywhere. And if both of you are on Skype, it’s free.

A networking party will follow the conference. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaymadrid.com/subscribe/ and reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

All details at Mobile Monday Madrid website.

After december’s MobileMonday Barcelona event on Location-Based Services, the next MobileMonday Madrid event of December 17 covers Mobile Social Media.

Social Media has gone mainstream this year with popular sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Flickr to only name the most popular. Social Media is the catalyst to the democratization of content publishing, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. Many of this social neworking & tools and sites can already be accessed from the mobile phone but the real challenges are lying into making all this user-generated content easily accesible on the phone in the right context while staying connected with your social network of friends wherever you are.

Another interesting line-up to cover and discuss this topic:

Jonathan Wood from SoonR, will explain how they deliver access to computer files and applications across converged networks by linking mobile devices to remote computers;

David Whitewood from trutap - who recently showcased at Under The Radar - Mobility event, will present their easy-to-use and free mobile service that combines all the elements of a young person’s social life into one application;

Christian Wiklund from Wichro will be presenting the 1st Wichro product, called ZKOUT. ZKOUT will be beta launched during Le Web 3 conference in Paris and launched to the public in Q1 2008. The service creates a bridge that connects your online and real world social networks;

Andy Abramson, author of VoIPWatch will talk about Mobile VoIP and Social Communications, as the blend between Social Networks and Social Media;

and Jaime González Rodríguez from Telefonica I+D will talk on Mobile Data and crossplatform (Mobile / Web / TV) services and the impact for Telco’s on their own service portfolio in order to harness the true potential of Mobile Social Media.

More details at MobileMondayMadrid.com. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaymadrid.com/subscribe/ and reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out, this event is going to be a blast!

It has been a while since I wrote on mobile music applications; not the ones as we know of them now - simple OTA downloads of ring-, real- and mp3 tones, but the ones that are just coming to the mobile market and are using new, innovative technology to create different business models for the mobile music scene. In a few years from here, buying music will be a complete digital process and the mobile is going to play a crucial part in this. For the readers missing this point, feel free to browse my archives, category mobile music.

One of the companies I discovered last year was Musicstrands. At first that time, I thought another social music service like Last.fm and Pandora, build on collaborative filtering and recommendation technologies to make you discover new music. An sich, to me, the way to go if you’re considering digital music distribution for the coming years. But MusicStrands is different in the way they choose resolutely for Mobile. I got really interested in what they do when I saw their Music Guru demo-presentation during 3GSM, a conceptual prototype of a next generation 3G/PC music player, developed jointly by Vodafone Group R&D, MusicStrands and Adobe. I wrote about that in my 3GSM Afterwrap.

Last weeks’ article from Carlo in Business 2.0 “Your Wireless Future” mentioned them again so I went to visit Musicstrands‘ website for an update. I must admit, I liked the progress and the new stuff I could do with it on my cell phone.

You can download the MyStrands plugin for iTunes, join the community, create your own playlists (or upload existing ones), tag your music and share it with others and receive recommendations form others. A lot of new stuff has been added lately like Playlist builder, tagcloud, m-charts, world map. Check it out!

Check also their MusicStrands Labs and discover their experiments with Music Discovery through Web 2.0 Mashups:

“With these collections of mashups, you are able to discover multi-media content related to your favourite artist/s. Just write down an artist name and click Go. We will fetch the artist biography from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr, videos from YouTube, posts from Technorati, personal goals from 43things, and events from Upcoming. You can then use recommended artists from MusicStrands to continue the experience and enjoy more multi-media content for those suggested artists.”

Way to go!

Discover MyStrands Mobile, it works on Symbian, Windows Mobile, Smartphones, Java phones, and soon, BREW. You can download the Windows or Java client versions here or visit mobile.musicstrands.com directly from your mobile. Here’s what you get once you created your profile. I leave the discovery process for you to discover

MuscStrands created OpenStrands Public API, a set of web services for developers interested in adding MusicStrands functionality to their non-commercial applications, the obligatory smart move for every self-respecting software development company.

I tried out probably everything I could during a weekend and got all excited about the progress, specifically in the mobile field, everything run smoothly. What MusicStrands offers the mobile industry is desktop, website, and mobile discovery solutions, that work synchronised, and work independently.

After having tried all the goodies, I wondered how MusicStrands positions itself against the ones as last.fm and Pandora including iTunes - they recommend tunes nowadays too, so I asked the guys behind MusicStrands and got in touch with Gabriel Aldamiz-Echevarria, Vice President, Communication at Musicstrands, he was very helpful giving feedback on my curiosity.

On the question how MusicStrands differs from VisualRadio he answered: “Visual Radio is not a personalized service. MusicStrands builds the technology to provide personalized mobile radios, based on the specific tastes of individuals and groups (plus other functionalities). So I would say these are two different services.”

Asking Gabriel about the key differences with services like last.fm and Pandora, he says:

“last-fm — offers weekly artist recommendations, based on the entire profile of a user; - last.fm does not understand the context of users, most of us have eclectic tastes in music (we may like both Mozart and AC/DC, but never listen to them together) and listen to specific artists or songs at specific moments. Last.fm fails to understand this, and contextual recommendations are critical for the mobile industry (recommend me what I want to listen to NOW, although I like AC/DC, I may not feel like listening to them now). MusicStrands recommends songs, artists and albums. Last.fm recommends artists. And they can only do that weekly. We do that instantly, whenever a recommendation is needed.

Pandora offers currently 400,000 songs and we offer today 6Million and are growing rapidly thanks to our Indy project. Pandora is a group of experts defining similarity; at MusicStrands, it is the community that decides that 2 songs are similar. Their approach is not scalable (because it requires “expert” intervention), MusicStrands’ technology has been designed to scale, to be able to recommend millions of different items to millions of different individuals.”

More on his vision of MusicStrands, as opposed to other technologies:

“It’s all about discovering music and rediscovering your own music library and manage your content.

The idea is to provide contextual music recommendations. Additionally, MusicStrands wants not just to push music, but to help people pull, decide what they may like, and therefore we provide people with tools to dig into the long tail, allowing people to guide the recommender towards the music that each of us might enjoy most. If you don’t like what you get, you can keep digging into the music universe. (by playing with “My recommendations” at the website). Additionally, any independent artist can upload their music, or information about their music, for free to MusicStrands and get discovered!

Many people have told us that their problem is not to find new music, but to manage and rediscover all the music that they already have. And that is why we have the playlist builder, as a way to help people dig into their own music library, as an easy way to fill their iPods.”

In relation if MusicStrands should consider iTunes as a ‘mobile competitor’, Gabriel was pretty straightforward:

“Our technology is scalable, reflects tastes of people, understands context, mobile+online+desktop synchronized solutions work together and independently, and is designed to facilitate the creation of mobile communities around music. I believe social recommendation and discovery technologies will become critical differentiators for online and mobile services. With regard to iTunes mobile presence, there is in fact a lot of room for improvement by building more intelligent mp3 players, with and without connectivity.”

“I truly believe we are approaching a uniquely wonderful age to be a music fan”, I believe so too!

One last thing: the first thing I did - and I normally do - when opening iTunes (now with MyStrands plugin) was playing one of my favourite podcasts in iTunes. This functionality currently doesn’t exist with MusciStrands but I think it would be great to recognise the tunes from a radio podcast and getrecommendations and find out immediately about the tunes playing. I’m sure I would buy immediately some of the weekly tunes played at the Basic Soul podcasts from Simon Harrisson.

BTW: have you noticed that a lot of the great tunes these days are available ONLY on vinyl?

… but that’s for another post!