Mobile World Congress 2010 Agenda Planning in Barcelona

BARCELONA -The coming week in Barcelona is set to be as buzzing and intense as ever during Mobile World Congress time, with an agenda packed chock-full of seminars, development days, meetings, parties, PR stunts and more.

The key to success as always will be to pre-select and prioritise carefully which events to attend (there are simply too many good ones to attend, unless you happen to have a body clone out there!) . This will depend on personal and company preferences and your specific objectives for the event. I recommend jotting down between 3-5 things you want to take away from the show (and side-events) and then matching that to your planned timetable. Is your key objective to learn about open development environments but have no time booked in to learn about Android? It could be worth re-jigging your agenda.

A few events on my agenda so far:

Innovation Exchange 2010

I've been invited to take part in a Panel Discussion at the Innovation Exchange 2010 (Applications & Monetization) event hosted by Qtel with support from the GSMA and MEF on the 13th\14th of February at the Hotel Skipper.

Social Media Round Table

I'll also be taking part in a Social Media Round Table discussion on Monday 15th February hosted by ACS at the Gran Marina to talk about "Capturing the Power of Social Media to Revolutionize the Customer Experience"

App Planet

I'm looking forward to the App Planet event in Hall 7 at the Mobile World Congress on Weds February 17th where SonyEricsson will have a 'Creation Day' for developers. The Xperia X10 Android device has had some rave reviews, so I'm interested to see whether developers are excited about generating content for it.

WIP Jam

The WIP Jam session at the Congress (registration now closed) on the 18th will feature a discussion panel on Augmented Reality applications and will help answer the question of whether the hype is justified. As AR is a hot topic, this is an unmissable session (more info here).

TechCrunch Europe

Finally, there is the Techcrunch event on the 17th Feb (offsite from the Congress) featuring Ilja Laurs of GetJar amongst others, and bringing investors and start-ups together (more info here).

I'll also be exhibiting in the Innovation Zone of the MWC at the GeoMe Stand: if you're a blog reader and you're at the fair or one of the other events, come and say hello! If you can't find me, send me a tweet @ricferraro.

Social Media Global Trends -Impact of Time Spent on Social Media Campaigns

Nielsen recently published some interesting statistics on the growth of different social media sites across the globe.You can see the main chart above.

They show the unstoppable rise and rise of Facebook, to over 100m monthly visitors, though Twitter's rate of growth is now higher than Facebook's. Twitter saw growth of 579% year-on-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009.MySpace's decline also continues unabated.

Interestingly, the time per person dedicated to visiting social media sites shows the US, UK and Australia leading the way (Canada is not included in the data, but presumably would be amongst the leading group too). You can see this in the table below from the Nielsen study.

Any social media campaign would do well to take the time per person factor into account, as this will impact the degree of penetration of the campaign. Social media users in countries with higher time spent per user can be enagaged at a deeper level with both the social media campaign and its message. Conversely, if a country has a lower time spent per user (like Switzerland), this would indicate that campaign 'bursts' with shorter engagement times would be more effective.

Mobile World Congress 2010 –Rumours and Expectations

It’s that time of the year again when mobilists around the world prick their ears to detect the crescendo of rumours concerning the 2010 edition of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Changing times

Globally, mobile is growing at a steady pace, with emerging economies taking the slack from mature ones, smarter phones encouraging greater use of data connections over the 3G and 4G networks and new services (like mobile money) coming on stream to create more captivating services on mobile.

So, why the gloomy faces on the mobile operators’ executives? Because times are a changin'. What began as an easily shrugged-off trend, ‘openness’, has seriously destabilised the comfortable world mobile operators were operating in. Threats of ‘dumb pipes’ loom large on the horizon. What I’ve referred to as ‘Open Playgrounds’ back in 2008 are now becoming the norm. Increasingly, operators find themselves at a loss to come up with a compelling consumer proposition that they can control (control being the key to monetisation). Meantime, that much loved measure, ARPU, continues on its gradual downward decline. Not the best situation to be in if you need to upgrade creaking 3G infrastructure to ‘gold standard’ 4G or LTE architecture by investing billions of euros.

Much more than hardware

Where exactly is the light at the end of the tunnel? No-one is sure, but increasingly operators think they can see an Apple silhouette against that light. Because no-one has been able to engage consumers in a controlled or closed environment quite the way Apple has done with the iPhone. Hence the launch of the GSMA App Planet (it’s all about the apps) during the Congress –which is great in a kind of ‘let’s jump on the bandwagon’ sort of way, but not so great when you notice that Apple isn’t in the GSMA’s App Planet (presumably Apple’s planet orbits within a different galaxy). Still, Google will be there to let everyone know that they are serious about mobile.

Google’s presence will loom large

In fact, Google will have the biggest profile ever at the Mobile World Congress, following its NexusOne launch and also with the much anticipated Key Note by CEO Eric Schmidt. Without a doubt, Google will shake up the industry and create (as well as destroy) new market segments –what I’m not sure about, is how much they will tread on the toes of operators in doing so.

Nokia and LG absent

Even for market leaders, this is a dangerous strategy –despite agreeing with Nokia’s strategy to re-invent itself into a de-facto software provider, their manner of doing so has also meant they have eroded their market leadership in the hardware/handset market. Partly so, by annoying operators with an attempt to create their own controlled system (remember, this is what operators consider part of their territory). It should come as no surprise therefore, that Nokia will be absent from the show,as is the case with LG. They too plan to create their own controlled App store and ecosystem.

Let Innovation Take Centre Stage

When the going gets tough, the tough start innovating! Now is a great moment for new services and companies to test out new concepts and shake up the industry at the grass-roots. We already saw at the CES Show last month some great innovations in the area of 3D technology. I expect Augmented Reality to be one of the key innovations buzzed about at the MWC (if it isn’t, something will be amiss!). If you are visiting the show, I recommend you check out the Innovation Zone and see where the services of tomorrow will be born.

Task.ly- Adding semantics to Task Management

I was introduced to Moscow-based Task.ly at the LeWeb09 Techcrunch Start-up Contest in Paris in December last year when I met co-founder Dmitry Gorshkov.

Dmitry is an experienced UI and UX developer, and while the 'engine' of task.ly is still under wraps (though you can get hold of a private beta invite) expectations are high.

If you stopped loving Outlook a while back, get frustrated with trying to manage your tasks effectively across multiple platforms, and are looking for the ultimate collaboration tool, task.ly could be a godsend for you.

You can get a short preview of what's to come in the presentation here:

Task.ly Overview

View more documents from Ric Ferraro.

Nexus One vs iPhone 3GS Challenge-A Video Comparison

TechnoBuffalo.com has created a great video illustrating the differences between the iPhone 3GS and the Google NexusOne phone in terms of design spec, speed and functionality (click here to see it).

In terms of browsing, one of the differences iPhone users will notice is the absence of 'pinch and zoom' on the Nexus. Other features are more in line -the hasidic keyboard is in portrait and landscape on both devices but the bigger screen on the Nexus certainly helps with typing.

Users will also appreciate the higher degree of customisation possible on the Nexus, from wallpapers to shortcuts as well as the multi-tasking capability and greater speed.

The world in 2020: Mobile Predictions

URBANIA, 2020:

Woken up by my mobile phone alarm clock at 7am, thinking it was about time to change the tune of my music hologram wake up call. 'Quiet!' I shout at the mobile phone, turning the alarm off via the voice-activated command.

Time for a power breakfast, where I can pore over my favourite digital newspaper on my iKindle (it was only a matter of time before Apple and Amazon merged-think of the synergies!). Mmm...I need to re-program the coffee machine from my mobile, need more foamy milk on that cappuccino!

And while I'm at it, let me program the housebot (house robot) from my mobile so it feeds the cat at 5pm-can't think how we lived without those things before!

Out on the streets, I have some time for some early morning shopping before heading to my 'collaboration pod' at the office...I point my mobile's 50 MP camera at the supermarket and see through the Augmented Reality layer (can't believe this was so hyped only 10 years ago!) that there are some 2 for 1 offers at the Deli Counter..nice!

'And, Mr.Ferraro, may we suggest you try our Tuna-flavoured pizza topping today', says the Wal-Mart Digital Mobile Assistant, knowing that I tried the Tuna-flavoured pasta 3 times in a row last week.Maybe, I think..damn shame all we have today is tuna-flavour, and no real tunas anymore....

Shopping finished, time to head to work. 'Your body temperature is 0.3 degrees below optimal' says my mobile, having detected my body heat through its sensors. 'Long sleeves are recommended', it continues.Damn! I need to turn that auto-sensor off, it drives me crazy.Plus, now all my friends will have received the auto-chirp from it in real time, and will think I am a cissy!

Anyway, I checked the YaGoogle Weather Forecast this morning, and it said the day will warm up later.Just as well, the kids will be going to school this afternoon, after their remote-learning video classroom from home.

After a full day of holo-video conference calls, I'll be ready for a good gym work-out! My Mobile Personal Trainer (that speaks to me with a realistic Arnold Schwarzenegger voice) has me on a tough, fat-burning regime. Just as well that at my age, all my bio-data is wired in real-time to my virtual doctor, who is always there to send me a pop-up alert should things get too extreme.

As I enter the gates to my office and approach the main door where my retina will be scanned once more and cross-checked to my Personal Digital Identity (PDI) Key on my mobile , I have one of those thoughts we sometimes get: boy, how technology has moved on in the last decade!

Marissa Mayer @ Le Web 09 Paris: Google Goggles & The Future of Search

PARIS -Marissa Mayer gave another closely followed fireside interview at LeWeb 09 in Paris this year, with Michael Arrington attempting (but failing) to get her to reveal more about the new Google-branded mobile phone (set to hit the market next year).

Marissa made it very clear that Google understands that search is evolving and particularly that mobile devices are becoming the key channel for accessing search. This ties in nicely with the launch of Google Goggles, a mobile software through which anyone can take a photo with the device and let Google automatically figure out what they are looking at.

Here is a short part of the video interview:

Le Web '09 Paris-Review and Recommendations from an Official Blogger

PARIS-Wowee! What an action- and news-packed 2 days here in Paris!Loic Le Meur (& team) pulled all the stops to gather some of the most influential web entrepreneurs and thinkers in Paris at this year's show.

From Jack Dorsey of Twitter, to Chad Hurley of YouTube, Niklas Zennstrom of Skype and Marc Simoncini of Meetic, LeWeb this year truly elevated itself to being one of the leading web events worldwide. So influential was the gathering, that #leweb trended as a top topic on Twitter for 2 days running, an impressive feat on its own.Both the BBC and CNN covered the conference.

So, as official blogger of LeWeb'09 (and someone who attended the '08 edition) how can this amazing 2-day event be summed up? What were the salient points? What lessons can be learnt to make next year's event even better (not easy!)?And for those who weren't there, what did it feel like to join the world's web elite?


THE GOOD BITS

First, the good bits -the LeWeb team really did listen to the feedback from last year's edition. The Wifi network worked a treat and no-one died from hypothermia this year. The food was plentiful and the Nespresso coffee flowed freely like a mountain spring.

The speakers at this year's edition were undoubtedly top notch, and covered all the main angles , plus getting Jack Dorsey to premiere his Square payment device was a real scoop. One had a feeling that speakers were as proud to be part of LeWeb as much as Loic was proud to have them present.

The Start-up contest was great -I would say almost an event in its own right, with a great selection of startups. I was particularly impressed by Hyperwords but saw many other cool concepts.I would have liked to have seen more, but ,like many people, would have required a clone to be able to attend all the simultaneous LeWeb sessions I was interested in!

SOME FEEDBACK

Now, for the improvement opportunities...there are not many, but in the spirit of continous improvement, some are worth pointing out...the one that stands out like a sore thumb is the registration process managed by Amiando, which, frankly, was a shambles. Unlike last year, I had registered early to avoid showing up and being told my badge wasn't ready (this happened last year). So, when I saw that there was a separate, shorter queue for 'Press/Bloggers', my heart swelled. But, sadly, it was not to be. I was told that even though the sign said 'Press/Bloggers', really what they meant was 'Press'.

So, I was instructed to queue at the right 'D-F' surname section. After 30 minutes of queueing, it was my turn. 'Sorry, your badge isn't printed' was the reply when I showed my accreditation.So, back to the Helpdesk (manned by only 3 people with one printer at a conference with over 2000 attendees!!) and another 20 minutes of queueing and listening to some French swearing from other people in the queue. NOT the best way to start the day or the conference, especially when you've skipped breakfast to be at the conference venue early.

Next, the blogging process...As Official Blogger, I greatly appreciated having a dedicated space on the lower ground floor with (almost enough) power sockets and tables- many other conferences can learn a lot from this.It was fantastic!Minor points though -the process for getting bloggers' posts on the leweb main website was a little shambolic. Each blogger had to submit a link or RSS from their own blog page in order to get their post online -a much better way would have been to get their feeds from all the blogger sites in advance and link it up automatically to the main event website.

Finally, the official party at the VIPRoom was a lame duck affair, with drinks shockingly priced at €20 a pop and a venue lacking in atmosphere or entertainment value. I understand there was no sponsor -but that is no excuse. If having no sponsor means that no effort is made, then it would have been better to pull the plug on the event. Plus, I heard from attendees of earlier LeWeb editions that these parties used to be great-let's bring the old days back!

GOOD MEMORIES OF LEWEB

There were many great things about the event, so it is difficult to focus on one or two of them as best memories of the conference, but if I had to choose, I would say the salient point was the speech by Queen Rania of Jordan -impactful, up-to-date and elegant. (a queen who personally checks out her tweets-how cool is that!) A real case-study in how a public figure can change the world.

Next best, Gary Vaynerchuk shook things up nicely on stage in the second day of LeWeb with his freewheeling style and sometimes coarse language -it was good to see someone challenging the status quo and sharing contrarian views freely with the audience.

Finally, I claimed my 5 seconds of fame at LeWeb this year!At the end of the event, Loic announced some statistics on the conference (see photo above) about #no. of connected devices, #of iPhones and network usage. Low and behold, I had managed to become the data upload king of leweb, with 15.64 GB of data!!Quite an achievement at an event with 2300 expert web users all competing for bandwidth!

THANK YOU LOIC!

Overall, a big well done and thank you to Loic, Geraldine and the team for LeWeb 09 for delivering such an informative and enjoyable event. Thanks to LeWeb, Europe becomes the centre of the wired world for two days every year, an outstanding achievement by any measure.

Queen Rania Al Abdullah @ LeWeb '09 Paris

PARIS -Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan delivered a passionate, inspiring and thought-provoking keynote speech at LeWeb Day 2 in Paris just before lunch. She told the audience that Real Time Web can bring real change to the humanity and asked the audience to support her 1Goal chairty in order to help children who are locked out of school.

In a well-delivered line, she noted how Twitter and other real-time applications can do what has never been done before since 'it is hard to connect with people when you are a queen'.

Queen Rania told LeWeb that the web is more human than ever before and that everyone now has the power to change things. You can find more info on how to support her charity at this link.

Tim Ferriss @ Le Web Paris 09

PARIS - Tim Ferriss started his talk here in Paris a few minutes ago saying that his original title for his bestselling book was rejected by the publisher.

He then decided to use Google to bid for varying book titles and see which one would be more popular -'The Four work week' came out trumps.

Tim says that there are 3 tipping points for attracting mass attention in the media and that you should PPC: Phenomenize, Polarize and 'Communitize'. Tim opted to pitch his book at people looking to change their lifestyle in non-traditional ways.

He also stored media-grabbing stunts (like his experiment to gain 17kg in a short space) for just prior to the book publishing date in order to obtain links to his blog or book site.

His credo is that you should market test everything before deciding on everything from the book title to the content, especially where the publisher has no initial marketing budget (like in his case).' Whatever people think is right is probably wrong', he stated.

You can try www.slinkset.com to test ideas, he said.

Videos are a great way to attract views: e.g. "how to 'peel' hard boiled eggs without peeling" or "how to be Jason Bourne".

Here is Tim's presentation:

Ferriss - Le Web 2

Le Web'09 Paris -Liqpay.com Start-up Contestant Video Interview

PARIS -Liqpay positions itself as a simple, but effective way to carry out financial (and other) transactions on web and mobile platforms. With a growing global customer base, this startup from Ukraine is looking to grab the headlines at LeWeb's Startup Contest.

Vitalij Kharitonskij, Liqpay developer and Kristina Chaiykovskaya, Business Developer, ran me through the main features of their service. You can see my video interview in this post later today (internet connection permitting).

If you are at Le Web, Liqpay will be presenting at 1500 in the Startup Contest area.

Le Web Paris ’09 Start-up Contest –16 companies jockey for #1 webpreneurship spot

PARIS- Le Web 09 edition has lined up an exciting array of 16 companies at the seed and start-up stage to promote their wares in front of its highly influential jury and public. 135 companies originally applied for the competition back in October, so only the ‘crème de la crème’ have made it through to the finals.

If you look at the full list of selected companies that will present in Paris (found here), you realise that this is a varied bunch indeed, covering areas such as cloud computing (c’est très chic right now) to social network aggregation and semantic web-style solutions.

The theme at Le Web this year is real-time web, so unsurprisingly a number of the chosen start-ups fit into this area. Notably, Sokoz, a web-based shopping portal that resembles an ebay on speed, offers item sales lasting 10 minutes with just 30-seconds for shoppers to decide whether to buy or pass up on the deal. Buyers are the ones deciding the price of each item, with the first one to click being awarded the lowest price.

Tanguy Lesselin, founder of Sokoz, says his site is all about playing while shopping, while saving time and money. With Christmas round the corner, the timing for Sokoz’s pitch is impeccable.

There are too many companies to carry out an extensive review here (and quite a few are still in private beta, so I have not been able to check them out fully) but each brings something original to the table. CloudSplit allows companies to track their cloud computing spend, FitnessKeeper lets you monitor your daily exercise routine on your iPhone, Siteheart lets you pay for items with your mobile phone, Superfeeder takes RSS feeds to the next level and Task.ly lets you manage your tasks better in an ‘all-in-one’ interface.

Mendeley will be a formidable adversary for other start-ups (and my tip for ‘one to watch’) after having convincingly won the Plugg Start-up Contest in Brussels in March (click here for my blog post on this). Backed by lastfm’s initial investor (and some of their recommendation technology magic), Mendeley allows researchers to discover, share and organize academic papers.

Personally, I am looking forward to an incroyable series of presentations next week- stay tuned for real-time updates from Paris.

(Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamtea/638446771/)