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For the opening of the 2008-2009 season, the next MobileMobile Madrid on September 29th, will address the topic of Mobile Internet Platforms with three major players: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft to know their plans for the mobile business.

José Antonio Martínez Aguilar (Director of the Telecom and Media Division at Google), Alex Romero (Director for Strategic Partnerships for Portugal, Spain and France at Yahoo Europe) and Iván Lozano (Mobile Manager at Microsoft Spain) will share their view about the industry.

In addition, there’s also four Spanish start-ups that will present their elevator-pitch and will get feedback in return from the GYM.

As usual, 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!

Ajit Jaokar informed me this week at MobileMonday Amsterdam he is organising the Mobile Web Megatrends conference in the Pacific Film Archive Theater, University of California in Berkeley on September 8. If you’re in the neighborhood and/or attending CTIA San Francisco, this will definately be an interesting conference looking at the topics and speakers participating, including mobile illuminates such as Michael Mace, Mike Rowehl, Barbara Ballard and many others.

Some of the topics covered

* The Mobile Web evolution and its impact for developers (views from Nokia, Opera, Skyfire and others)
* The Obamamobile : Media and mobile convergence opportunities from the development of Barrack Obama’s mobile strategy
* Cloud computing and its impact on the mobile ecosystem - Moblast
* The iPhone session : The iStore and the future of mobile applications and it’s impact on developers(Micheal Mace, William Volk)
* Emerging markets: Digital inclusion, mobility with an emphasis on the Brazilian market
* Operators, new Media, Security and convergence(experiences from ESPN,OMTP, Gemalto and others
* Open source and mobile (Mike Rowehl)
* Mobile advertising models including analytics(admob)
* Mobile opportunities for start-ups(venturebeat)

The discussion will focus on the strategy, implementation, competitive advantages and the pitfalls of these trends.  This unique opportunity to get an unbiased viewpoint with the opportunity to discuss these developments. You can clarify your thinking from the experience of others and keep the conversation going through an ongoing attendees only discussion forum.

For more information and registration, please visit Mobile Web Megatrends conference.

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!

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.

The Mobile 2.0 Conference is spreading its wings to Europe and will land on July 4 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event focusing on the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation, is brought to you by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee: Daniel Appelquist, Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl, Peter Vesterbacka and myself in partnership with ESADE.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is an opportunity for companies to connect to industry leadership and startup innovation and broaden your C-level relationships.

The event will be held at the Espacio ESADE FORUM, Barcelona and will run from 9:00am to 6:00pm with a reception at the Espacio ESADE FORUM afterward.

So, what can you expect? Two industry keynotes, four panels and three series of innovative startups presenting live-demos.

Panel speakers as of today include:

• Tony Fish, AMF Ventures
• Dr. Maximilian Niederhofer, Associate, Atlas Venture
• Inma Martinez, Director and Principal Advisor, Stradbroke Advisor
• Anil Hansjee, Head of Corporate Development - EMEA, Google Inc.
• Mike Butcher, editor TechCrunch UK & Ireland
• Chris Liu, Managing Director, Fjord
• Leif Fågelstedt, COO, Blyk
• Ilja Laurs, Founder & CEO of GetJar
• Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO GoFresh
• Raimo van der Klein, Co-founder SPRXmobile
• Martin Duval, CEO bluenove / Director of the Orange Start-Up Program
• Carlos Domingo, General Director of Telefonica R+D labs
• Unai Iturburu, Head of Vodafone Spain R&D

Check the full speaker list here.

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 company with a mobile application can participate. To apply and present your company and your application, you need to fill in the online application form. Deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Seed Capital Stage and Pre Series A Start-ups will be selected by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 organizing committee. Post Series A Start-ups will be selected in collaboration with the VC Panel. 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.

Early Bird registration for this event is only € 99,- till May 31, after that date, tickets will cost €199,-Stay tuned! More goodies to be announced soon.

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.