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Choosing the 1st summer weekend to edit a Carnival of the Mobilists was probably not a great idea at start, but it turned out well for me reading all contributions after siesta in the shade on a Sunday afternoon, with a fine mix of the latest albums of Osunlade, Jaga Jazzist, Terry Callier, Ron Trent & Jerome Sydenham, Hercules and Love Affair, and The Herbaliser as a background… laid back and inspiring!

Luckily there were not too many entries this week due to the fact that many mobilists have changed the “blogging from home” to a more “hectic travelling the globe” lifestyle. Ubiquitous computing has progressed tremendously but hasn’t yet provided us with the perfect tools to keep the blogging up to speed from wherever we are.

Not too surprisingly more than half of this week’s contributions are on the “Location-Based Applications and Services” topic. Better get used to the coming hype words, since they’re going to be everywhere the coming months/years… Geotagging, location tracking, Assisted GPS (AGPS), location based advertising (of course!), location based aggregation, cost per location, zone detection, location based social media, location stamps, location reporting strategies, discovery, sensoring, geocaching, spatial data, geographically-oriented communities, location-based (life) streaming, social mapping or geo-social networking applications, etc.

Realising how advanced we may be with our ideas and technology these days, I still had to wonder where this week’s contributors actually lived? So, how come no-one is using an online tool to know about one’s location? How about then using this on the mobile?

This brought me to the idea of creating this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists map so you can read the entries browsing the map or just by reading this post. If you find out you’re near to one of the mobilists, who knows you might soon bump into him/her

But hey enough now as an introduction… let’s hear it from the mobilists themselves!

Read all this very interesting and insightful posts on LBS:

Mobile 2.0: Addicted to LBS by Tarek Abu-Esber (London, UK)

Top 10 Location Based Startups to Track by Zhou Wenhan (Singapore, Republic of Singapore)

Add context to your photos with Geotagging by Sachendra Yadav (Hyderabad, India)

Convergence or cooperation? by Igor Faletski (Vancouver, Canada)

Has Google won the location battle already? by Andrew Grill (London, UK)

Which GPS Reporting Strategy is Right for You? by Patrick Brannan (St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

Check also my contribution this week on this low-tech location-based urban travel guide from Louis Vuitton, called the Louis Vuitton Soundwalk.

My take is that location itself will become obsolete soon, it is something technical the user doesn’t really want to know about, unless he/she needs to read a map… But what about the many people who can’t read a map? Voice-activated GPS is one of the widely used GPS solutions, but what about all the services being build around locations? Who is around, interesting things to do, places to visit, find places? Top down information vs. bottom-up user-generated content?

I believe it’s more important to develop services based on discovery, but linked to your social network of friends, and contacts who can tip you on the best stuff and who can leave valuable comments about places and events - it’s about the value and quality of the recommendation. That was probably one of the missing pieces in Nokia’s LBS strategy and why Nokia bought Plazes.

Other topics this week:

Mobile Workforce

Hiring Opportunities and Redundancies in the Converged World of Telecoms and Mobility by Justin Oberman (New York, USA) and pointing to an Interview by Ajit Jaokar (Oxford, UK)

Mobile Advertising

Interesting presentation on Using mobile social networks to target advertising… one day by David Cushman (London, UK)

And more on context: NFC interaction by Barbara Ballard (Lawrence, Kansas, USA) and must read on Updates from mobile phone researcher Jan Chipchase by Bryan Alexander at Smart Mobs and Rob Knight entered this Video Interview with Ray Haddow and Tom Farell from Nokia.

And last but not least the ongoing discussion on Mobile Browser vs. Native Applications:

Browser as an application platform by Gábor Török (Miskolc, Hungary)

Apps on smartphones = Geek. Apps on Facebook = Fun. Why? by Dean Bubley (London, UK)

When Will Facebook Take Apps Mobile? by Carlo Longino (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)

I also wanted to inform that Mobile 2.0 Europe is now fast approaching. Tickets are selling fast, so if you’re interested, don’t wait last minute to order your ticket, we’re heading for a full house. You can check the full program and complete list of speakers.

You can also follow latest Mobile 2.0 news on Twitter.

Also of your interest might be the Mobile 2.0 link exchange and discussion room we created on FriendFeed. When this goes mobile, it’s going to be next place to be Subscribe and join here - http://friendfeed.com/rooms/mobile-2-0

That’s it for this week, I learned something more this weekend and got to know some bloggers I haven’t heard about before, that’s what it’s all about, right?

Monday, June 23, 2008. Carnival of the Mobilists 129 edited by Rudy De Waele (Barcelona, Spain)

Next week, Andrew Grill is hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists at http://www.andrewgrill.com/blog

Two weeks before the opening of the Mobile World Congress, the third annual Mobile Sunday Barcelona - an unofficial, informal and generally cool and funky gathering of mobile bloggers and their chums - has already over 100 people subscribed to the wiki!

Here’s your chance to meet some of the key mobilist bloggers, key industry people from carriers/operators, device manufacturers, mobile applications and service providers companies. This is also an occasion to hear about the exciting stuff happening during the congress and learn about start-ups and interesting projects and launches, the evening before the big show. If you’re not on the list yet and would like to attend, just add your name + info to the wiki.

There’s also a Mobile Sunday Facebook group for picture and video uploads of the evening. FYI: it’s recommended to add your name to the wiki to make sure you’ll get in in case it gets too crowded! Thanks to our friends at MyStrands, who will generously provide some ‘more’ free beer this time.

List of current attendants:

The Mobile World Congress is coming near, so I’m starting to announce some side events I’m involved in.

The third annual MobileSunday - an unofficial, informal and generally cool and funky gathering of mobile bloggers and their chums - will be taking place in Barcelona on the eve of this year’s Mobile World Congress (formerly known as 3GSM).

Last year’s event, which was also organized by myself with the much appreciated help from blog pal Stuart Mudie, and was attended by over seventy people (check who attended last year here). This time round, there’s going to be some more free Belgian beer, generously provided again by the good people at MyStrands.

I you would like to catch up with some mobile passionates, Mobilists and MobileMonday founders, mixed with some healthy dose of ususal suspect bar-hangers, this is your spot to be. What possible reason can you have not to join us? To confirm your attendance, simply add your name and URL to the Mobile Sunday Barcelona wiki.

This gathering will be held at the BelChica bar (10 minutes walk from the Congress).

More cool event announcements coming here any day soon now, so stay tuned!

The first Carnival of the Mobilists of 2008 (#105) is online at Mobile Point View. Head over and read Paul Ruppert’s exciting post!

After a long flight back from iPhoneland, a severe jetlag - I can’t sleep on planes - and catching up with the works, I finally got to edit the 96th Carnival of the Mobilists. Nearly 2 years after my first Carnival of the Mobilists participation, headphones plugged in and a moody playlist on, I’m ready to roll out my 4th CoTM edit of some of the best blog articles on anything mobile of last week (fyi you might also want to read previous edits #33 and #64).

With CTIA IT & Wireless still busy, a week after the Mobile 2.0 Conference and the Symbian Smartphone Show, this is one of the most dense and exciting periods in mobile of the year. I definately would like to add the Web 2.0 Summit to the list - though Daniel Appelquist wasn’t quite happy with the low attention mobile got at the summit, and he has a point here. Maybe invisible at this years’ summit but undoubtly more present than ever in surrounding announcements and events. Convergence (sorry couldn’t find any better word yet) between web and mobile is happening!

With Scobleizer picking up on Mobile (only) Social Software and Martin Varsavsky visiting Steve Jobs… this looks to me as the start of just another exciting period to come…. You ain’t seen nothing yet

In a week where Google Docs Mobile was released, Steve Jobs anounced an iPhone SDK, Facebook to open a developer platform for mobile, Nokia releasing the N810 Internet Tablet, and (again) Google launching free IMAP for Gmail, the web going mobile - or was it the other way around? - is definately looking more interesting and more realistic than ever before… Not to forget the news that Orange will sell the iPhone in France without SIM-Lock (the French consumer rights forces Orange to offer the iPhone also without contract and without SIM-Lock)… You may skip from here if you think all this isn’t exciting

So let’s have a look at the discussions following last week’s Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Mike Rowehl compiled already a lot of reactions on the event, I added my impressions and more links in my Mobile 2.0 Wrapup, some discussions continue on various channels and threads on Jaiku. BTW: interesting to see a lot of action is shifting from Twitter to Jaiku after the Finnish start-up joined Google.

A real mobilist discovery for me this week was John Puterbaugh’s post on RIA Platforms for Mobile Services. John is the Founder and Chief Strategist of Nellymoser. Read also his thoughts on Mobile 2.0 – when and how. Definately word a read and adds interesting thoughts to many previous discussions on this topic.

Very to the point as well was Kelly Goto’s comment on Russ McGuire’s post on Mobile 2.0: Mobile Internet vs. Mobility:

and C. Enrique Ortiz “No mention of Windows Mobile @ Mobile 2.0 Event” reply on a previous rant from Rob Tiffany. More of these lively discussions and divergent opinions, please!

Read also Rafe Blandford on Motorola 50% stake in UIQ and Carlo Longino’s notes on this event, both reporting from the Symbian’s Smartphone Show in London.

Tarek Abu-Esber looks this week at Mobile Device Technology & The Mobile Web. Mobilist ‘godmother’ Judy Breck reports on Smartmobs how students are “sorting out student mobile rights at school“, an issue that Oliver Starr mentioned also in one of his live blogging posts at Mobile 2.0 on Blognation:

Clearly not to be overlooked issues in our maxed out social media world of today.

Read Morten Hjerde’s take on why the iPhone will attack Sony Ericsson but loose out to Nokia in Europe. Another great blog discovery for me, realy great stuff on his blog!

On the Mobile Marketing side Bill Day picks in on a great idea for a personal mobile business card, an earlier post from Russell Beattie. Troy Norcross looks at How to block text message spam and Dennis Bournique has a closer look at the Mobile Metrics Report on AdMob.

That’s it for this week, hope I didn’t left anyone out. Next week, the carnival is hosted by Andreas Constantinou at Vision Mobile.

Dear mobilists,

I’m hosting next Monday’s CotM.
Since I will be travelling from Sunday to Monday, I would appreciate if you could send your entries before Saturday 2pm PST / 11pm CET so I can store them on my laptop and do the editing on the plane.

There’s going to be a lot of entries focused on Mobile 2.0 Conference and Symbian Smartphone Show but I’ll consider any other interesting topic of course.

If you have doubts how to participate, please read the Mobilist FAQ.

Looking forward to your entries!

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is edited by That Canadian Girl Véro. Check edition #94 hosted for the occasion at Taptology. As usual great posts from some really great bloggers writing on anything mobile.

This edition also includes a sneak preview for Carnival readers to have an early look at the Taptu mobile search beta, before their public launch anytime soon now. But you’ll have to head over to find out about the details

This week the Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Abhishek Tiwari in sunny Santa Cruz California. Check edition #92, as usual great posts from some really great bloggers writing on mobile related stuff.

Next week, the carnival is hosted by Tomi T. Ahonen at Communities Dominate Brands. Note that we always need volunteers to host, so don’t be shy about stepping up. Hosts get great exposure and extra traffic that week - and many new readers will stick around if they like what they find. To qualify, you will need to have submitted 3 posts to the Carnival. Check the host schedule and send your request and date you would like to host to Judy Breck at jbreck AT nyc DOT rr DOT com.

“Coming to us from Egypt and hosted this week by Tarek Ghazali, Carnival of the Mobilists 81 is a Pharaoh-style midway of the best mobilists blogging of the week. An echo of the collection spirit of the Library at Alexandria, this Carnival 81 surely has the Ptolemies smiling in their sarcophagi.” (from mobili.st website)

Knowing that summertime is here for many amongst us to take some well deserved rest, this Carnival period is also ideal for newcomers to jump in and host one of the Carnival’s during summer. Carnival reading is known to be ideal just before a relaxing summer nap or siesta, so grab this moment to show your talents in writing on the evolution of the mobile phone. You can participate in moving the tradition forward and making your own mark with the best writing on mobile. Read How to Host a Carnival of the Mobilists and check our host schedule with available dates to host; for more information and details you can contact Judy directly here.

Ricky Cadden is hosting this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists in his own Big Tex style, hosting from Symbian-Guru.com. Head over for a round-up of the best blogging about mobile this week. Check also his post why he’s back on Jaiku, thoughts that I share with him.