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Carnival of the Mobilists #194

On 05/10/2009

Ahead of CTIA later this week, this edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists is being hosted by Tsahi Levent-Levi on his VoIP Survivor blog. This week brings an incredible line-up of topics and contributors: A couple of posts on mobile advertising (including mine pleading for engagement as a crucial factor of ad success), the ideal app store, mobile learning and a whole host on the use of mobile apps in the workplace (including one with a Blackberry in a bakery!) and corporate environment in general plus a look on service and feature requirements for mobile phones in the developing world.

All very good indeed! So head over and set aside a good hour to read! You’ll find it here.

The Carnival of the Mobilists #193 is Here

By Volker

On 28/09/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

This week it is on me to welcome the world of mobile blogging to my own pastures for this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists. We have an abundance of variety, showing how incredibly diverse this “little” niche has already become.

We’re having – amongst other things – general market overviews, novel handsets, subscription services, mobile learning, how smartphones will look like, an interview with an old colleague, learnings to be drawn from the airline industry (yes, really!) and, last but not least a take on why mobile is not just another media screen.

So let’s kick off:

Chetan Sharma treats us to one of his wireless market updates and, as usual, it is a feast for the data-hungry. Make sure to go there (and bookmark!) as a future reference point. Very helpful stuff here!

Tsahi Levent-Levi provides us with his thoughts on (what he believes are) the failings of the modular handset-maker Modu‘s approach to boost its offering: he reckons that plugging hardware together won’t do and we should rather look at the cloud to provide impetus to opening the hardware to more uses. He notes that he trusts Flickr more than his own hard drive, which I ask everyone to think about: a lot of truth in that!

Raj Singh casts a critical eye on the state of US subscription services, which he considers broken. He points out that a few class actions hanging over providers’ heads might pose a severe threat to the mobile content industry.

Judy Breck from the Golden Swamp takes inspiration from an iPod touch ad to look at how smart phones are likely to influence the education as well as the games sector: she notes that eBook readers suffer from similar flaws as gaming consoles and that therefore their fate might actually be similar – in the face of evolved mobile devices like the iPhone.

Mark van’t Hooft’s Ubiquitous Thoughts provide us with a round-up on what’s going on in the mobile learning space. He throws a couple of very good pointers for you to read if you want to smarten up on this sector quickly.

Teresa over at WIP Jam has an interview with Lauren Thorpe, a former colleague of mine and now the Sr Director, Developer Relations at Qualcomm. Lauren has a couple of interesting points on the do’s and don’t’s for developers.

The dotMobi guys suggest you have a look at an analys firm’s recent assessment of mobile site capabilities and has some tips on how to avoid falling short of standards (such as all [!] of the US carriers). I am not sure I want to encourage report sales via the Carnival but the top tips listed in the blog are certainly something everyone should look at.

Mark Jaffe then treats us to part 5 of his series “why mobile advertising has not reached its potential”, and his thoughts are very valid indeed. He reckons that the phone is more than only another media screen (and brings some very compelling evidence for that!) and that marketing will therefore fail if advertisers do not realize this. And even worse: mis-reading the power of the medium could actually return serious damage to your brand, so better watch out!

Finally, Ajit Jaokar treats us on his Open Gardens Blog to another sniplet of his wisdom, and a very remarkable one indeed. He draws on the evolution of the airline industry to watch for parallels in the mobile space (both work from a network…). His key finding is that experts from the airline industry seem to have found that the industry’s failures (from incumbents as well as new entrants) were not due to competition or innovation but due to the inability to accurately forecast demand, and – consequently – failure to adapt the business models accordingly. Read it, think about it, think some more… 😉

Post of the week goes to Ajit as the lateral thinking oozing from his post inspired me most A close runner-up is the post by Mark Jaffe (for very similar reasons). Thanks!

Next week’s carnival will be hosted by one of this week’s contributors, namely by Tsahi Levent-Levi on his VoIP Survivor blog. Until then, have an enlightened, inspiring, and successful week!

Image credit: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2509/3733837014_56809f34d9.jpg (Manchester Caribbean Carnival 2009)

Carnival of the Mobilists #192

By Volker

On 21/09/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

The 192nd iteration of the Carnival of the Mobilists is under way. This week’s edition is hosted by C Enrique Ortiz on his About Mobility blog and features an overview of Opera Mini 5, a background story on app stores (juicy: written by a Qualcomm exec), some stuff on mobile learning and, last but not least, my own “little” contribution on mobile’s role in the transformation of the music business (which also received a “favourite of the week” note; thanks C Enrique!).

Check it out, it is well worth a read! You’ll find it here.

Carnival of the Mobilists # 181

By Volker

On 05/07/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

It’s not yet Monday but the ever-present Andrew Grill who is hosting this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists on his London Calling blog has it live already. Read it here.

My recent post on the evolution of the model of mobile game aggregators (or mobile content aggregators in general) is featuring as are posts on the mobile Internet and how it differs from that other Internet, (mobile) cloud computing, the future (or no future) of s60 as well as IBM’s Twitter use during the recent Wimbledon tennis tournament. Good stuff. Go, read it!

Carnival of the Mobilists #180

By Volker

On 02/07/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Rudy de Waele on his unmissable M-Trends blog. Rudy gives us a round up of last week’s mobile blogging highlights in spite of injury… Hats off as always! Hope you get better soon!

His contributor lists reads like a who’s who of mobile blogs: Ajit Jaokar, Carl Martin, Carlo Longino, Dennis Bournique, C. Enrique Ortiz, James Coops, Jamie Wells, Judy Breck, Marek Pawloski, Mark K. Kramer, Phil Barrett, Ronan Mandel and Tomi T Ahonen all contributed (yes, I know I was missing; no time to blog I’m afraid…).

Go head over to M-Trends now to get some inspiration!

Carnival of the Mobilists # 178

By Volker

On 14/06/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

Welcome to the Carnival of the Mobilists, which has finally arrived on this blog, and how timely, too!

Last week marked not only the launch of the long-awaited Palm Pre but also featured Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (without Steve Jobs threatening to quit this time), so the theme would appear to being set: it is all about smarter phones, is it not?

And, lo and behold, this is exactly what this week’s worthy posts focused on, and from a variety of angles. It apparently energized some of the best and brightest to set pen to paper (or thumb to keyboard; can somewhat come up with an updated simile, please?). So off we go:

We are first and foremost being treated (!) to another of Tomi Ahonen’s epic posts, this time a journey through the times of the smartphone, from Nokia’s first Communicator (oh, how I loved my “brick”) to the iPhone, N97. Specifically, he looks at how differently the concept developed in the US vs the rest of the world. He also tells us where he thinks the real future lies (hint: not in apps apparently…). It is an absolute must-read even if a) you’ll need a good cup of coffee and a bit of time to read it and b) Tomi’s Finnish heritage does shine through on more than one occasion… 😉

Ajit Jaokar’s Open Gardens Blog follows on this theme: he argues that the Web just moved and that this will impact the balance of power with the web winning (hint: this is coming closer to where Tomi thinks we’re going, too).

Peggy Anne Salz’s MSearchGroove blog lends its space to Ben Jacobsen, the former Director of Global Marketing for Opera, who has some numbers to put against predictions that apps won’t really matter by looking at the real value of the app industry (it’s apparently $3.2bn in 2009 growing to $7bn in 2013) and the opportunities for app stores (hint: it is not Apple that rules). He also – rightly – points out however that the fact that Opera’s Mini browser is the top downloaded Java application of all time provides a good outlook on where the real opportunity lies.

Judy Breck suggests that smartphones have become a defining tool to ensure social equality in education: she urges to give smartphones to Washington DC school kids to make sure access to information is the same irrespective of class and income.

If you want more proof on how the web enhances your mobile experience, here you go: Aaron Chua shows us some intriguing examples of mobile applications that combine mobile device functionality with the information available online. Geoff Ballinger throws in his comparison of the price plans competing in the UK with the new iPhone 3GS’s tethering option (just in case you were wondering if it made sense).

And then, here is a voice reminding us that there is not only the web to connect to but the real world, too: Andrew Grill gives us a heads-up on Unilever’s thoughts on mobile coupons. They realized that they might be able to reach youngsters who might not be so keen on cutting out paper coupons anymore…

Before I go, here are two very noteworthy posts on events you should try not to miss:

Caroline Lewko’s WIP Jam Sessions stage events on various mobile open source topics in Amsterdam, Berlin and Marseille.

And then of course Rudy de Waele opens Mobile 2.0 on 18/19 June 2009 in beautiful Barcelona.

And Rudy has a special goodie for Carnival readers: he is giving away 2 FREE TICKETS to both the developer day (otherwise sold out!) AND the conference. Here’s how to win the ticket: send your definition of what is Mobile 2.0 in a tweet tagged #cotm to @mobile20 before this coming Tuesday 14h (CET). Rudy will choose the best and announce the winners on the day.

Post of the week goes to Tomi Ahonen’s tour de force of the smartphone world (but he also receives a caution for being maybe a little too rose-tinted over Nokia – I am referring to their recent innovative forces rather than their early revolutions…).

Now go, click those links and dive into what will hopefully bring you (even more) insight and inspiration. Have a great week!

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/mg2lto

Carnival of the Mobilists #175

By Volker

On 25/05/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

The Carnival of the Mobilists #175 is being hosted over by Igor Faletski at his Mobify blog, and you can read it here. Included is my post on Vodafone’s forthcoming app store as well as a couple of great contributions on use of mobile technology in the education sector as well as politics, Palm OS/WebOS (see also my last update on the Pre), history of innovation in mobile technology, and, and, and. Now, go read!