Mobile Monday London

Exciting news! We're very pleased to announce that our next event is on Monday 29th March and will be kindly hosted by IPC Media at the Blue Fin Building on Southwark Street. And just like the last time we were there back in June, we're going to do a demo night. So we're after interesting mobile applications, services and products to present to our community. We have room for about 10 or so companies to demo their wares during the evening. The format is show 'n tell style of about 5 minutes (we'll be strict with the time) with a chance for questions, comments and constructive feedback from the audience. Want to know how it worked last time? Then take a look at our blog archive from last June - http://mobilemonday.org.uk/archive/2009_06_01_archive.html

So are you up for presenting on the 29th March? Is there something out there that you think deserves to see the light of day. Then we'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to be considered, please email helen@[removethis]mobilemonday.org.uk or alex@[removethis]mobilemonday.org.uk as we're coordinating this one. We also need to know how you need to demo whatever it is you'd like to demo (slides, visualiser, audio, wifi etc).

If anyone out there can also bring kit to help us for the evening - that would be fantastic. We need visualisers, femtocell kits, remote clickers - you get the idea. If anyone can help out with this kind of stuff, we'll be eternally grateful. Help boosting the mobile signal would be particularly helpful. We're on the top floor of a tall building and mobile reception can peter out the further up the building you go (although we will have wifi).

And on that note, we're still after a co-sponsor for the evening so we can have more beer and can cover the cost of hiring in any equipment that we need. If you're interested in supporting this one, please get in touch with Helen or Alex as above.

Labels: demo, mobile, mobile application, mobilemedia, mobilemonday

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

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

Ok, admittedly that’s a song title from the rather marvellous Rumours by Fleetwood Mac which I’m listening to as I write this, but it also describes where we’re at with location based services. LBS seems to be the new black, it was big news at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year and there seem to be various location based apps cropping up out of the iphone woodwork. But it’s not all rosy in the location based world. Sure, we can use pretty maps on our phones but what else is out there and does anyone actually care?

That’s why I was particularly interested to read Stuart Dredge’s article recently in Mobile Entertainment magazine where he dispels some myths of mobile entertainment (and arguably the rest of the mobile world too and number 9 particularly resonated with me:

"Location-based technology is intrinsically exciting for consumers...

No it's not. The phrase "location-based technology" intrinsically puts most people who aren't in the mobile industry to sleep. And they look equally unimpressed if you promise them their phone can guide them to the nearest cashpoint.

That was the big selling point of the early days of LBS, until the industry realised that even half-cut consumers can womble their way to the nearest bank machine under their own steam. Now the buzz is around social location, and mashing up your handset's GPS with social media and Web 2.0 services.

The problem is that this is all still technology-led. The assumption that everyone wants to track their friends - and especially that they regularly go out in town with no specific plans in mind of who to meet or where to go - is unproven at best. As is the idea that people want to geotag all their photos and videos and share them with the world, all the time.

The next year or two will see some really smart, desirable mobile services launch that use location. But it's the ones that are actually based on stuff people want to do that will succeed.

It's more about great, desirable services that happen to have location elements in the mix.”

So that’s exactly what we’re going to take a look at on 12th October. Stuart Dredge has kindly agreed to chair the session for us where we’ll find out what services out there, challenging how we position and market them, how much location matters (or not), and what customers really want or need. We reckon it’ll be a lively debate kindly supported by Skyhook Wireless and GetJar. We have some great panellists lined up for you which we’ll be announcing in a few days. And we’ll have some demos for your delectation. We’re also still interested to find out which LBS apps and services you use and why so do keep contributing to the email thread on the topic.

What: Go your own way? A fresh look at location based services.

When: 12th October 2009 – 6pm for a prompt 6.30pm start.

Where: CBI at Centrepoint

Register and RSVP here

Photo credit Smiling_Da_Vinci on flickr.Used under Creative Commons licence.

Labels: applications, events, lbs, location based services, mobile, mobilemedia

Our next event (sponsored by Wireless Foundry) will be on June 2nd and will feature a high-level panel discussion on current mobile web, services and applications from a media and marketing perspective. We'll take a look at everything from mobile web to proximity to messaging to games and highlight creative execution and effective campaigns. We'll also discuss what media-owners and agencies want and how we as an industry should or could respond. We will also be challenging our expert panel to take a glimpse into the future and tell us what's catching their eye on the mobile horizon and what they think will capture the public's attention in the future.

Helen Keegan of Beep Marketing will chair the panel and it will feature Stephen Pinches from the Financial Time, Matthew Postgate from the BBC, Robert Thurner from Incetivated and, fresh from leading the successful MEX conference this week, Marek Pawlowski of PMN!

Those details again:

Theme: Whassup in Mobile Media and Marketing?
When: June 2nd (doors open at 6pm as usual)
Where: Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX, UK
(http://www.rss.org.uk)

Our kind sponsor: Wireless Foundry!

Registration now open (you must be subscribed to the mailing list to register).

Labels: bbc, financialtimes, fjord, helenkeegan, marketing, mobilemarketing, mobilemedia, mobilemonday, momolondon