Mobile Monday London

It’s a big topic. We’re led to believe that the mainstream media world is in trouble with declining advertising revenues and difficulty in matching available revenues with cost of production. And not only that, there’s a whole new world of mobile and social media out there with unclear revenue models. Where do you place your bets? Do you knock down your existing business to create the new one? Do you wait before making your move but risk missing the boat altogether. These are all questions the answers to which are still unclear.

And this topic was also on our minds in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress where the UKTI hosted a Mobile Monday London panel session discussing this very thing. Paul Skeldon from Telemedia 360 took some video of it, the highlights of which you can see below. It's in four parts with Russell Buckley, VP of Global Alliances at Admob chairing (and co-founder of Mobile Monday Germany and co-star at the Mobhappy blog), and Chris Boden from Lonely Planet in Australia, Lucie McLean from the BBC, Steve Ives, CEO at Taptu and yours truly on the panel.

Is Traditional Media Dead?

Is Advertising Dead?

Are Applications Dead?

Will the iPad Save Us?

Paul also covered the panel session in this month’s Telemedia 360’s PDF newsletter which is worth a read if media and mobile is your game. [You can download a free copy from their website.] I am widely quoted in the article but to get the full context, it’s probably best to view the videos *and* read the article too to get the whole picture.

You might also be interested to know that the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference was on this week. Although not there, some of the tweets from it are worth a look. Have a look for the hashtag #FTMedia10 and follow FTDigitalMedia on Twitter. I’m sure there’ll be some news and blog coverage coming out of this conference too, so watch this space.

Another *must read* article is this one Understanding the participatory news consumer – a comprehensive breakdown of the latest Pew Internet research showing what the US digital news consumer is up to on their mobile phone. I’m not going to repeat what the article covers, but it shows that mobile internet users access the internet more often than their fixed line counterparts:

“On-the-go news consumers:  Who are they?

The typical on-the-go news consumer is a white male, age 34, who has graduated from college and is employed full-time.  Given their younger profile, it is not surprising that 40% of this group are parents of young children (compared with 30% of the general adult population), and 32% have never been married.  One in three (32%) live in households with incomes of $75,000 or more. As a subset of the broader mobile internet population, on-the-go news consumers reflect many of their characteristics (see table below).

Not surprisingly, on-the-go news consumers maximize their cell phone use.  They are 67% more likely than other cell phone users to text message, more than twice as likely to take pictures with their phones, and four times as likely to use their phones to instant message.  They are also especially heavy internet users—80% of this on-the-go group are online on a given day, compared with just 67% of other internet users—and they engage in activities such as blogging (20% v. 11%), using social networking sites (73% v. 48%), and using status update sites like Twitter (29% v. 14%) at significantly higher rates than other internet users.”

Labels: meetings, mobile monday, mobilemedia, mobilemonday, mwc

Some of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to of late. Well, if you have, then I can reveal to you that I’ve been working on a new conference, Heroes of the Mobile Screen, which is on next month on 7 December at the rather wonderful BFI on London’s Southbank. And I’d love for you to spread the word (like our wonderful media partners), buy tickets and join the conversation. And I’m afraid this has taken our attention for the last few weeks which means we’ve had to cancel November’s Mobile Monday London event. Hopefully, this will all make up for it.

The team behind the conference, Isabel Fox, Neil Robertson, Carlo Longino, Dominic Travers and yours truly are also involved in running Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest events amongst other things.

The day-long event at BFI Southbank will differ from anything else around (at least that’s what we’re aiming for) and get the stakeholders of mobile involved in discussing the issues affecting them and their customers. Uniquely the event also has teenagers on stage to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen is already attracting a number of high calibre ‘heroes’ with speakers and panellists answering the call from around the world, including Kei Shimada, JP Rangaswami and Kevin Marks, Belinda Parmar, Julia Shalet, Doug Richard and Harald Neidhardt are all confirmed. The speakers are listed here and the agenda can be found here.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen opens with a keynote from Kei Shimada sharing his experience of what’s happening in Japan and what we can learn from that here in the West. And continues with four core pillars supporting discussion throughout the day.

The money
What's making money, who's making money and what's being invested in and where the money's going to be in the future? The answers to all the questions we want to ask of successful mobile service providers and VCs.

The impact of social/location
What is the impact of social media and location technology? What do customers want, what are the business models, what are the solutions to privacy issues. Carriers are placing their bets in this area, but will they pay off?

Teenage heroes
Led by digital youth marketing expert Julia Shalet (pictured left), this is a new format where we invite four companies to pitch their product, service or device live on stage to six teenagers and they tell us what they really think.

Real customers, real applications, real marketing
A double session with the first half covering customers and what they really want on mobile with a focus on women in particular with some new research and insight into what women want from Belinda Parmar of Lady Geek. The second half will cover mobile marketing and advertising, what's working, what's not and what's coming next.

I came up with idea around the event because we realised that most of the events I attend throughout the year all talk around the same subjects, with the same people and bring up the same issues, without resolution. It’s time for us to stop talking to ourselves, look out beyond our industry and make some changes for the better. I believe it’s important to engage our colleagues in marketing, web 2.0 and media as well as more of our mobile colleagues from throughout the value chain. The exciting stuff is going to happen when industries cross over – that’s where the innovation is. In putting the agenda together, we believe we have something that will appeal to a wide audience – whether you’re a director of marketing for an FMCG brand or a web developer toying with the idea of developing apps for android or iphone.  And to do that, we need to share real customer insight that we can use to make ours and others mobile lives better.

Tickets are now available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee) at http://mobileheroes.net . We’ve kept the price deliberately low and it’s subsidised by sponsors who we’ll be able to announce shortly.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the event in some way, please get in touch with me via email.

If you’re interested in pitching your gadget, application or service to our teenagers, please email Dominic Travers to put your name forward.

We are keeping a waiting list for potential speakers and panellists. If you’d like to be considered, please contact me.

So get your tickets now and become a fan on Facebook or follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/hotms too.

Labels: conference, mobile, mobile monday, momolondon

You might be familiar with the Global Peer Awards that Rudy de Waele has been running in partnership with Mobile Monday for the last few years in Barcelona. Well, he’s now extended the concept to include more networks, including the Women in Mobile Data Association (see us on Facebook and LinkedIn) and has launched The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 and it is now open for entries.

The Mobile Premier Awards recognize the year’s best in Mobile Start-up Innovation and are the largest open, global start-up competition in the mobile industry. The awards are the point of reference in start-up premiers during the Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010 in Barcelona (yes, it’s nearly that time of year again) and are organized in collaboration with some of the main networks in the mobile industry.

We’re particularly excited about the award for female entrepreneurship… Anyway, more details about the whole shebang here. It’s free to enter and it seems to me to be exciting to be involved in it with both my Mobile Monday London hat and my Women in Mobile Data Association hat on. (Good job I like wearing hats eh).

The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 will include the following awards:

* MPA in Innovation - The best grassroots start-up innovation chosen by their peers in partnership with Mobile Monday. The Mobile Monday chapters will vote for their local most innovative start-up. An international jury of the most recognized mobile industry experts will select the 20 finalists from all the local chapter nominees to pitch at the event in Barcelona in front of investors, operators, media companies, peer entrepreneurs, and press and influential bloggers.

* MPA in Marketing - The best start-up in Mobile Marketing

* MPA in Entertainment - The best start-up in Mobile Entertainment in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum

* MPA in User Experience - The best start-up in Mobile User Experience in partnership with MEX.

* MPA in Social Change - The best start-up using mobile for social change in partnership with Mobile Active.org

* MPA in Female Entrepreneurship - The best woman-led mobile start-up in partnership with Women2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association

Participation to these awards is free and open to any start-up with a mobile angle. Go to www.mobilepremierawards.com and take your chance to walk the red carpet in Barcelona!

Labels: Awards, mobile, mobile entertainment forum, mobile monday, mobilemarketing, mobilemedia, mobilemonday, momolondon

We're coming to  the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to Yahoo Groups, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine.
Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/polls

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobius http://www.woobius.com/ (UK)
A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK)
A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicture http://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL)
Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboo http://audioboo.fm/ (UK)
Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layar http://layar.com/ (NL)
A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsE http://www.mynameise.com/ (NL)
Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Thanks everyone and please get voting!

Labels: mobile monday, mobilemonday, momolondon, vmc, Vodafone, Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to thank everyone who helped, sponsored, attended or demo'd at last night's Mobile Monday London event. Even though I say it myself, it was a great success. The three room format seemed to work particularly well for a demo session. We also had some lovely feedback on the night which means a lot to us.

But there are some specific thank yous I need to mention to you all...

To our lovely sponsors, IPC Media (such a great space, really helpful staff on site, and great views across London town) http://www.ipcmedia.com and Samsung Mobile Innovator who announced their Samsung Innovation Quest widget making competition last night http://innovator.samsungmobile.com/gtm/siq/samsungiq.do (hard cash prizes for the winners - worth a look) and to the weather fairies who kept it dry for us so we could use the wonderful roof terrace.

A huge thank you to our lovely helpers without whom, we couldn't have run the event so smoothly - Tiffany Mitchell, Julia Shalet, Nik Buckman, Improbulus and Mark Hawkins - you all did a great job :D

To the lovely staff at IPC for looking after us so well - Heidi, Naomi, the bar staff and the very calm and collected Jose for managing the technical stuff.

To our great demo companies who gave us a varied and interesting evening : Ben Whittaker from Masabi showcasing the latest yet simplest in rail ticketing, Dan Phillips from Ookl who showed us how to make cultural and learning venues even more fun, Jeff Bloom from Synchro Arts/ Singtone who proved to us they can make *anyone* sound good when they sing, Simon Taylor from Corebridge who managed to share with us what they’re doing around CRM on the go, Alex Will from Spoonfed who make it easy to find out what’s on in London local to you, Tanvin Sharif from Vopium which is like Skype but better as it’s seamlessly integrated into your mobile phone’s address book, Mun Kong from d2see / Peepr.tv who showed us what fun you can have with a web cam and a mobile phone, Simon Maddox from 0870.me who wants to make it easy for people to ring 0870 and 0845 numbers at local and national rates from your phone and is doing this for love not money, Alex Housley from Total Hotspots who makes it easy for you to find your nearest wifi hotspot with reviews, Mark Rock from Best Before Media who showcased the runaway success that is Audioboo for folks into audio micro-blogging, Dave Hodder from Artilium who work with MNOs to make it easy for them to open up their networks to third parties and also do something rather special around LBS without the need for GPS, James Norris from Proxama who showed us the latest developments in NFC wallets, and Adam Hoyle from Do Tank Studios who showed us how easy it is to create photo mash ups on your phone using their Photofit app.

A thank you to Ben Smith from The Really Mobile Project http://thereallymobileproject.com who covered the event for us and will be posting stuff about the event shortly.

A thank you to my fellow organisers on the night Dan Appelquist and Alex Craxton. Jo Rabin, you were missed!

And a final thank you to all of you who came and participated. Your questions, tweets, feedback and presence made it all worthwhile. If you're interested to see what was said on twitter, search for #momolondon and #momolo which were the hashtags we used last night. You can follow us on twitter too.

If you took photos or are writing up a blog post re last night's event, then please do let us know and share the links with us here. I can see there are already some photos up on flickr.

If you'd like to sponsor or co-sponsor an upcoming event or our website, then please do get in touch with one of us - dan@ alex@ jo@ helen@ mobilemonday.org.uk

And if you'd like to be on our roster of helpers, please contact me and I'll add you to the mailing list for that too.

Till the next time…

Labels: demo, mobile monday, momolondon

Just to remind you of the logistics first... Our lovely sponsors this month are IPC Media (whose fantastic offices we'll be seeing on the night) and Samsung Mobile Innovator (who will be making a special announcement on Monday evening). Doors will open at 6pm for a *prompt* and we mean *prompt* start at 6.30pm as we have a LOT to get through and I didn't want anyone to miss out. The demos should be done by 8.30pm and we'll have drinks and networking then and if it's a lovely evening, we'll be out on the stunning roof terrace. You'll find IPC Media's offices at The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street up on the 10th floor (nearest tubes Waterloo, Southwark, London Bridge).

Please allow enough time to get through security on the ground floor and
take the lift up to the 10th floor where we'll be holding the event. Also please
make sure you are registered well in advance so we can whizz you through security. We cannot guarantee you entry unless you are registered.

We have capacity for 155 across three rooms and we'll be rotating the demo teams across all three rooms so that you'll get chance to see everything. You won't miss out by not being in a particular room.

Each demo company will have 3 minutes to pitch their wares, and not just show what their product does but also share at least one insight. At the end of each section, there'll be chance for questions from the audience. This process will be repeated three times with the three groups of demo companies. The products and services you'll see on the night are:

Vopium - like Skype but fully integrated into your mobile's phonebook
Peepr.TV - webcam streaming to mobile
0870.me - standard rate calls instead of 0870
Photofit - photo mashup application
Total Hotspots - Rummble your nearest wifi hotspot
Audioboo - audio micro-blogging as much loved by Stephen Fry amongst others
Artilium - making LBS easy for developers
Proxama - the latest in NFC wallets
Ookl - mobile learning
Singtones - karaoke on your phone
Masabi - rail ticketing
Corebridge - CRM on the go
Spoonfed - London restaurant finder

Labels: applications, demo, mobile, mobile monday, momolondon