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Belgian compatriot Robin Wauters is setting up the Plugg conference on March 19 in Brussels, an excellent opportunity for you to get up to speed on the state of the European Web 2.0 industry.

Robin asked me as a speaker to give an overview and current state of Mobile 2.0. Some interesting speakers are attending as well, such as Lisa Sounio (Dopplr), Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Reshma Sohoni (SeedCamp), Tom Raftery, Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital) and Rodrigo Sepúlveda (Vpod.tv), amongst others…

Next to the panels and speakers’ line-up, the conference hosts a European Start-Ups Rally. No less than 65 valid submissions from 18 European countries were received by the organizers and jury, resulting in a selection of 20 start-ups who will get to present their wares at Plugg. In alphabetical order, here below:

1. 123people
2. Alenty
3. Assetbar
4. Business IT Online
5. Caleido / Wuala
6. Cellity
7. Floobs
8. HumanGrid
9. Mobiya
10. MyOwnDB
11. Nugg.ad
12. Radionomy
13. Refresh Mobile - Mippin
14. Sportme
15. Trampoline Systems
16. Trutap
17. TVtrip
18. Viewdle
19. Workhound
20. Zilok

Good to see some mobile companies in there, such as Cellity, Mippin, Mobiya, Trutap, amongst a truly interesting selection. Looking forward to this one!

The selected companies will have the opportunity to pitch the jury and audience at Plugg in a morning session, 2 minutes each. A vote will then decide which 3 finalists get to present for 10 minutes each in the afternoon, after which a winner will be chosen and awarded.

If you haven’t yet registered for Plugg yourself, now’s the time! As of next Saturday, the early-bird rate expires and the entrance fee will go from 400 to 500 euro.

I wanted to thank my readers, collegues, online buddies and friends for sharing some great moments with me this year. Some of you I just met but already left an impression, and others I enjoyed working together on innovative projects and events, or just exchanged opinion on the mobile phone and its interaction between people and objects.

One of the main drivers in my work is to innovate through collaboration, meet wonderful and diverse people that keep things interesting, dashed with spirit and surprise and truly unique… it really enriches my life.

From the Peer Awards in Barcelona, ¡nnovate!Europe in Zaragoza, TechTalk in Menorca, the Global Summit in Helsinki & St. Petersburg, Mobile 2.0 in San Francisco, Under The Radar in Mountain View and LeWeb3 in Paris, there were man great moments and events, not to forget the many MobileMonday events we organised this year in Barcelona and launched in Madrid … I enjoyed every bit of 2007.

I’m already looking forward to some new projects starting in 2008 and events like DLD Munich, Lift 08 in Geneva and another Peer Awards in Barcelona, stay tuned on mTrends!

Special kudos to Kelly and Lisa at gotomedia, Russell and Carlo at MobHappy, Caroline, Carles, Francesco and Gabriel, Jari and all MobileMonday chapter organizers, Carlos and his team, Debbie and her team, Peter and his team, Markus, Barcelona Media, IE Business School, Gregory, Mike, Peter and Daniel from Mobile 2.0 Conference, Steve and his team at Taptu, Prash, Raimo and last but not least my collegue bloggers and anyone working on innovative mobile technology.

I wish you all a very happy new year and a prosperous and successful 2008.

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

Not sure who ever organised 3 MobileMondays in 3 weeks - no I won’t advice it, unless it is to come and watch of course but it’s the way we had to get our act together to start the events in Madrid and get the rhythm right. All in all, I think we were able of keeping the right quality level we’re aiming at for every event…

After the succesful opening event of MobileMonday Madrid and the Mobile Web Applications topic covered in Barcelona, the next MobileMonday Madrid event on November 12 covers experiences from the UK Mobile Market. The UK has one of the most active emerging markets in next generation mobile data services, together with France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We want to learn about the experiences from some of the best positioned people in the UK Mobile industry and explore new market opportunities.

For this event we brought together Mike Short, VP Research and Development at O2 - Telefonica, Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango and Christopher Moisan of Taptu to share with us about their experiences and new business opportunities. The panel will be moderated by Ricardo Pérez from IE Business School.

All details and speakers’ bios at MobileMonday Madrid website. If you’re in the neighborhood, don’t wait to book your seat, the opening event was fully booked after 2 days only.

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.

Yesterday I did the introduction at the Mobile 2.0 Conference - which was GREAT btw! Since the tremendous feedback I got on my recent Mobile 2.0 Start-Up Ecosystem presentation (as of now nearly 5.000 views!), and many people asking about yesterdays’ presentation, I decided to upload my introduction on Slideshare here.

Included in my presentation is a new ’slide exchange’ collaboration I started with Raimo van der Klein from Amsterdam. Last week he pinged me on a new slide he made on Google’s move to mobile. We started to email a bit back and forth, commenting on eachothers slides until we were happy with a result that I included in my presentation yesterday.

Since the audience seemed to love the result, we decided to challenge the mobile community to think with us and improve these slides further. The goal is to get the best “analysis” of Google’s moves into the mobile space. If you would like to participate please visit this slideshare group and download the latest version and give it a go. Don’t forget to repost to the group otherwise your work can’t be enjoyed by others.