Turning Yellow Pages into Gold: Making Money from Mobile Search.

CHANGE IS COMING TO BUSINESS SEARCH:

That we are about to witness a sea of change in the traditionally tranquil waters of business directories was made patently clear at a recent meeting of key Yellow Page businesses at the EADP Conference in Mallorca. In mature European markets like the UK, printed directory revenues are declining by approximately 12% year on year.

Meantime, digital revenues (PC web and mobile) have been growing year after year, and on a global basis, account for more than 20% of total business directory revenues. But the web growth story is one that dates from the ‘noughties’, the decade spanning 2000-2009. Today in the ‘teenies’, the decade started this year; mobile is the key engine of growth.

In fact, already 30-40% of Europeans access web services more regularly from a mobile device than from a PC. This means that the ability for business directories to deliver a personalised experience on mobile is more important than ever before.

HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY FROM MOBILE SEARCH?

The big question is: how do you make money by letting business directory users access the service on mobile?

Firstly, a quick explanatory note on the mobile channel, as this can mean two things: the Mobile Web and Mobile Apps.

This can seem obvious, but the distinction is important. With a mobile website, a business directory can deliver an improved experience for those users browsing through the directory’s website on a mobile device. It is a good starting point. But to make the most out of the mobile device’s capabilities (especially those of smartphone devices) mobile apps are the key.

Here, the app can make full use of the positioning, touch screen and other Smartphone gizmos (like the accelerometer that detects handset motion). By doing so, a much more unique, interactive and engaging experience can be delivered to mobile users.

Business directories with a good set of mobile apps and a mobile website can not only deliver extra value to existing directory users. They can also open up the service accessible to new groups of users (for example, teenagers with iPhones, who may have never opened a printed Yellow Page book in their lives). Business directories have the possibility of charging their customers (advertisers who list in their directories, not the end user) for this new mobile channel.

Business listings on mobile are also the perfect route towards order fulfilment –as the mobile is also the most common way of getting in touch with the business that is listed. Take the example, if you will, of a stranded person in an unfamiliar part of town that needs a taxi to get home. A search for ‘taxis’ within the Yellow Page app is the quickest way to get the number of a taxi company. And by having a ‘click-to-call’ button next to the company name, the user can dial straight through and order a taxi. This can be through a premium number that can generate shared revenues for both the Yellow Page Company and the advertiser.

RFQ-REQUEST FOR QUOTES

 Another exciting development is the up-and-coming RFQ, or Request-for-Quote model on mobile. Here, the realisation is that business directories can add most value by linking specific advertisers with specific user requests.

For example, a plumber participating in the scheme would receive real-time requests for his services obtained by users searching within the plumbing category of the business directory. Monetising the service is carried out by charging a commission for each fulfilled order. Quotify, based in San Francisco, have already rolled out this service using web platforms, but are seeing increasing demand for delivering the solution on mobile.

Mobile OS Platforms-Which horse should you bet on?

Here is an extract from Golden Gekko's view of the mobile platform landscape today with an insight into likely losers and gainers going forwards:

The mobile ecosystem keeps on evolving faster than ever and it's often difficult to see the macro trends with all the day to day announcements and comments about winners and losers. One of the most exciting things is that nothing is certain.

Here's a short summary of the trends that we are seeing and longer term impact:

Handset Operating Systems and Development Platforms

• iPhone - Continues to evolve with OS4 being a great leap forward and with the best UI and SDK for developers but overall market share is stablising at about 13.5% of smartphones globally and with only one new device release per year growth is likely to be tempered going forward
• Android - Outsold iPhone in Q2 and increased their market share by 886% since last year with more handset manufacturers continuing to launch devices and competing against each other with vastly improved hardware including QWERTY keyboards, better cameras as well as very competitive prices and is expected by most to be the nr 1 smartphone OS in 2011
• RIM continues to hold on to a big share of the smartphone market with 18% based on a wide range of communication and utility focused devices for business users as well as the youth market with an amazing usage adaption among teenagers in the UK thanks to Blackberry Messenger but market share is expected to decline unless Blackberry 6 delivers improved app support and user interface 
• Nokia has gone from the undisputed leader to an underdog despite still being the global leader in overall market share (36% in Q2) and smartphones (43% in Q2) due to lack of great new devices and unclear strategy of Symbian and MeeGo but we would definitely not rule them out as they still have deep pockets and a very loyal base in emerging markets and a partnership with Intel with even deeper pockets and long term bets riding on the success of MeeGo
• Palm WebOS went from being a dead horse to a joker when HP acquired Palm earlier this year thanks to having developed the 2nd best OS to iPhone in terms of user experience and based on open standards and as the largest PC manufacturer worldwide HP won't give up in the first place
• Microsoft Mobile has constantly failed to deliver a really appealing user experience since they first launched the SPV in 2002 and although they undoubtedly provide the best PC - Mobile integration it hasn't been enough but with Windows Mobile 7, the biggest development community in the world and a track record of not giving up they might still have a chance to find a market and slowly grow over the next couple of years from 5% of the smartphone market in Q2
• Samsung Bada Wave is another unexpected player in the smartphone OS space as they also deliver devices with Android and Windows Mobile but Bada has outperformed most people’s expectations in terms of user experience although it essentially is a Android copycat based on Linux and Java and won’t have much chance in the high-end smartphone segment
• Webruntime Widgets are not really a OS or a platform but with the popularity of webkit based mobile browsers and the push for standardisation among carriers the widget standard (also referred to as JIL by Vodafone, webruntime by Nokia and WebOS by Palm) it's becoming an important platform and might actually have a good chance of establishing a standard for apps that don't require the latest and greatest from each of the individual platforms.
• Java ME continues to be the leading platform in terms of installed base and handset sales supported by Symbian, Samsung Bada, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and most proprietary OS from Nokia (e.g. S40), Sony-Ericsson, LG and Samsung with well over 2 billion devices worldwide and over 0.4 billion downloads per month with majority of Java downloads now in emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Brazil and China

In conclusion
The media and financial community seems to believe that there can only be two or maybe three winners in the smartphone space like in the PC world with Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX and various Linux versions. What if it’s possible with more? Maybe the market is so big, the technology development so fast and customer preferences so different that there is room for more than three? Google Android definitely looks like the favorite of the day but we don’t think the battle is close to being over. Like we said in a previous update. “In mobile fragmentation is forever. Deal with it.”

Element Youth Mobile Marketing Campaign including Crowdharnessing

Element - Claim it! from Morten Halvorsen on Vimeo.

A friend and former colleague in the US shared this mobile marketing campaign with me several months ago and it provided such a perfect (and rare) example of how to bridge the gap between the real and virtual world, that I have been using it continuously since then.

The campaign for sporting goods/Sporting brand Elements manages to pull off creating a well-targeted app (just for urban skaters), with a strong viral element (competition for the best skating stunt allowing skaters to ‘claim their spot’), an integrated digital experience (a customised website linking to the mobile site) and rich mobile features (location plus video) as well as social media/crowd harnessing (the best skater videos were uploaded to the official Elements website).

The promotional side involved giveaways of branded gear at ‘on-the-spot’ competitions, the cherry on the cake for what was undoubtedly one of the most complete, well thought out mobile campaigns I’ve witnessed in the last couple of years.

You can see the explanatory video above which illustrates clearly how all the various elements of the campaign fit together. Special thanks to Ed o’Meara and Josh Dhaliwal.

Golden Gekko's expands Asian operations-adds app developers

PHNOM PEHN-Leading mobile application developer Golden Gekko has been at the forefront of mobile marketing since 2005 and, building on its success, is now planning further expansion.


Golden Gekko is currently expanding operations in Cambodia, Spain, Sweden and UK with an announcement on entry in new markets soon to be announced, says the company. With 65 employees and plans to reach 100 by the end of 2010, Asia already represents a key development hub for Golden Gekko.


Since 2009, Golden Gekko has been adding new solutions to its product portfolio, key amongst which is the Mobile Directory Solution, designed to put Yellow Page and other Business Directory sites onto mobile. Golden Gekko now delivers the full range of mobile apps and mobile websites to European Directories, Europe's biggest Yellow Page operator.


The company also says that it plans to launch its iAds for the iPhone platform within apps developed and so deliver more exciting and appealing ads while still remaining within the application environment. 

Metaio, Augmented Reality and E-commerce - Retail Use Cases

San Francisco/Atlanta -The following is the press release from Metaio relating to their e-commerce Augmented Reality product that helps consumers see products in their own space (akin to the IKEA AR application in a previous blog post). It represents one more step towards AR becoming a mainstream technology.

The Internet changed how people shop. Now, YOUReality LLC and metaio Inc. are changing how people will shop online. With the introduction of its Online Retail Visualization 3D tool, YOUReality is making it possible for consumers to see products in their own space before they purchase them by integrating Augmented Reality into a suite of commerce applications. The new services allow shoppers to make more confident buying decisions, deliver retailers a higher sales conversion rate, and significantly lower product return costs.

Online shopping is attractive to an increasing number of consumers for its convenience, speed, product selection and other benefits. To make the shopping experience even more engaging and informative, many retailers are enhancing their websites with multimedia features such as video clips, virtual visualization or slide shows so that shoppers can better understand product features. With YOUReality, customers can even "bring it home" and try before they buy, allowing consumers to visualize context sensitive products with life-like 3D models in a photo of their own home environment. The resulting image provides a realistic view of what the object will look like in that space with the ability to move the item around (maintaining correct dimension and perspective) and change colors, styles, sizes and textures of the 3D object while viewing it in the photo.

By pioneering the concept of Retail Visualization using the metaio platform, YOUReality has harnessed the power of 3D for a practical purpose. "YOUReality gives a cool technology relevance in the world of commerce by driving retail sales through increased conversion rate," says YOUReality Founder, Michelle Fallon. "Retail Visualization takes the guesswork out of the visual aspects of shopping, such as selecting fabric choices, textures and colors, making the buying decision faster and easier because consumers can literally see furniture, electronics, appliances, even accessories, in their own space at the point of sale. Retail Visualization for e-commerce allows the user to visualize products in a web store and then add the selected items directly to the shopping cart to complete the transaction online," she says.

Geo-Fencing, Location Privacy & Other Animals

Privacy has been, is and will remain one of the most hotly debated issues within both the web and mobile domains for time to come. Only last week, a probe by German, French, Spanish and Italian authorities gathered steam as fears of Google's Streetview data-gathering exercise appeared to have breached several national privacy rules.

The debate has many dimensions: what should be in the 'public' domain? Where does the trade-off lie between the benefits of increased sharing of information and the risks of over-sharing?

Erick Schonfeld writing in TechCrunch today provides an interesting summary of what Google's, Foursquare's and Facebook's take on the location privacy issue is.

I completely agree with Facebook's VP of Product, Chris Cox, who described a future where phones are "contextually aware" so that they can "check into flights, find deals at gorcery stores and do other things for us at that right place, at the right time". Importantly “The phone should know what we want.”

In my book on Building Location-Aware Applications (with co-author Murat Aktihanoglu), I describe this as the 'Contextual Holy Grail', with context providing the 'intelligent' added element to Presence and Location.

As handsets get smarter, the whole area of 'sensory perception' will also allow predictive services to be delivered to the handset -for example, a handset that can detect your stress levels and location, will be able to recommend an Aromatherapy store nearby.

Geo-fencing allows users to draw virtual fences around neighbourhoods or locations that either you want to maintain as private or public. This helps give users control over the location service and set their desired privacy levels. As greater automation of location services come on stream (checking-in your location really is too cumbersome for most people), geo-fencing will provide a useful way to strike the right privacy balance in a smarter way.

App Store Rankings–Distribution Strategies for iPhone and Mobile Apps

The following is a short extract from chapter 11 on 'Distributing your Application' within Part III 'Creating Winning LBS Businesses' in my forthcoming book, Location Based Services (written with co-author Murat Atkihanoglu), available for pre-order here.

“There is a certain shroud of mystery surrounding exactly how App Stores work, with the various players involved guarding most of their cards close to their chest. And while there may have been 3 billion reported downloads from Apple's iTunes store, it is anyone's guess how many of the apps downloaded were later removed from the device.

First, the bad news: getting your consumer to discover or find your app within an App Store is difficult. The iTunes Store is a case in point: with over 140,000 apps available in over 30 individual country stores, finding an app you don't know the name of is extremely difficult.

Now, the good news! You can significantly increase the odds of becoming a popular app by understanding the dynamics of how App Stores work.

A good 'discoverability' strategy will consider the following:

• App Rankings
• App Reviews
• App Analytics
• App Discoverability Services

Let’s take the first item, App Rankings. What exactly do we mean by App Rankings and how are they measured? Rankings work by taking the most downloaded apps within a short space of time, typically 24 hours. As they are regularly updated, there is a lot of upwards and downwards movement within the list, but entering the list as a newbie app requires considerable effort.

Some App Stores, like iTunes and Android Market, publish rankings within the store itself and there are tools such as App Gems (pictured above) that allow you to monitor global rankings for Top 300 iPhone apps.

Why are rankings important? The simple answer is, the better the ranking, the greater the downloads your app will receive, as it gives your app greater exposure.”

Mobile Web and Mobile Apps Monetization Strategies

Faced with a prevailing culture where consumers expect web services and digital content to be free, mobile app and mobile web developers need to adopt the right strategy in order to monetize their efforts.

The Freemium model is a classic marketing tool available to mobile app developers to maintain the perception of a free service, while attempting to lock-in customers into some type of charging mechanism. (And I recommend reading Chris Anderson's 'Free: The Future of a Radical Price' book for further insights into this).

But many of the decisions around charging will stem from a look at the value that the mobile consumer perceives he/she is getting from the app in question. Apps with a low perceived value will struggle to charge anything at all, no matter the charging mechanism.

I presented a basic introduction to monetization of mobile apps to the EAE Business School this week. This intro is based on a wider discussion included in the chapter of the same name in my new book on Location Based Services (for early access to the book, click here). In the same chapter, I include a toolkit for deciding how and what to charge for mobile apps and present some success examples of companies that cracked the key to generating recurring revenues.

I took a quick survey of the class (highly educated, international, 20-25 year olds) to see how many had smartphones and what type. About 25% had a smartphone, equally split between iphone and Blackberry. 0% had an Android device (which goes to show that Android still has some way to go in Europe...)

As part of the Q&A, one of the questions that struck me the most was along these lines:

"We hear a lot about mobile apps and the gold rush taking place, but is any app developer actually turning a profit from this activity?"

The answer is, of course, yes, though only those developers with the right combination of an attractive value proposition and the right charging mechanisms are able to succeed in an increasingly crowded marketplace. The potential, with 500+ million apps downloaded to date from the iTunes Store, remains huge. But it pays to have the right monetization strategy in place.

You can see the presentation below:

Mobile Web Monetization Strategy

View more presentations from Ric Ferraro.

Start-up Funding in times of crisis

As a follow on to the previous post on 'V is for Vulture Capital', here is a short article I submitted to a local business magazine about funding start-ups in times of crisis, based on personal experience in Europe.

"Whether in a boom or bust part of the economic cycle, obtaining funding carries a health warning for innovative start-ups. It can involve an enormous amount of effort for little (or no) return. This is particularly the case when seeking Venture Capital.

The matching of VC funds to start-ups is an imperfect market. The money will not flow to innovative start-ups unless they have the potential of being ‘the next Netscape’ –no matter how world-changing their inventions are.

Plus, there is the funding paradox –it is easier to obtain €20 million of VC money than €1 million. Many VCs will not even look at making investments below €5 million.

In Europe, we still witness a ‘funding gap’ left by Business Angel investment and VC investment. Few investors feel confident enough to sit in between the two and pump in investment amounts of under €1 million. This forces many European start-ups to grow organically and limit international expansion –allowing competitors from outside Europe to catch up all too quickly.

In times of crisis, the funding gap is compounded by the banking sector tightening the screws on their lending procedures. Without the ability to fund working capital using bank overdrafts, loans and credit lines, a larger number of start-ups seek private investment to prop up their balance sheets. As cash is king, these private investors will in turn limit their investments to those start-ups which are themselves cash generating. This compounds the problem and creates a financing vicious circle that is difficult to break unless economic growth resumes."

Foursquare vs Gowalla -the battle of the check-in at SXSW ( a video comparison)

AUSTIN- SXSW has come and gone, but it has left an important mark on the social networking scene by making location-aware apps core to the participants' experience of the event.

It also raised the profile of the location 'check-in' feature, as popular Location Based Social Networks like Gowalla and Foursquare competed for the hearts and minds of those present at SXSW.Google's VP of Geo Products, John Hanke, said:

"the check-in had energized the conference."

Who was the winner of the ' mobile check-in' at SXSW, then? Apparently, there wasn't one, though this video produced by SimpleGeo gives you a good feel of how the different services were used (thanks to Troy for bringing this to my attention).

SXSW Interactive Checkin Visualization from SimpleGeo Inc. on Vimeo.

HTML5 on iPhone and Offline Web Apps

Making iPhone Web Apps continue to run after they went offline used to be an uphill struggle. However, with the specification of up-and-coming HTML5, you can now load a web app just once and then let it run offline. All this, without a need for a continuous internet connection, giving it the feel of a locally installed native iPhone app.

In his recent post on Mobiforge, Wei-Meng Lee explains how to use Dashcode to write offline iPhone web apps. His article gives you a great step-by-step explanation, from the Configuration of Apache for Web Publishing to Session- and Client-side Storage.

If you are about to develop an app with offline mode, I recommend you read through Wei-Meng's article for further insights. You can find it by clicking here.

Apple to launch iCar Prototype with total customisation through App Store

It was only a question of time till Apple decided to venture into new segments by extending its powerful branding franchise. Swiss-watch maker Swatch was the first to foray into the car sector with its successful Smart car model joint venture with Mercedes. Now Apple is looking to replicate this success with its own vision of an 'iCar', combining the latest clean fuel technology with its famous App Store concept.

Full details haven't been revealed, but official sources close to the company state that the iCar will 'integrate Apple's leading iTunes app download technology to provide customisation capabilities never seen before in a car model'.

What this means is that buyers of the iCar will be able to download the entire car specification options one-by-one from a special iCar App Store -from the accelerator display app, to the colour scheme app, rearview camera app etc, effectively 'building' their own electronic display features from scratch. Needless to say, the iCar will come with a WiFi booster, 6-speaker stereo and 9-inch screen and iPad/iPhone dock to also benefit from all the communication and multimedia features loved by Apple fans worldwide.

VC is for Vulture Capital-"Show me the big money"

As a business owner or entrepreneur, one of your main objectives will be to make money. So, relating to Venture Capitalists should be easy. Except, that what they are after is 'big money' and this means saying 'no' a great deal more times than 'yes'.

If you plan to pitch a VC firm, a useful starting point is Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule of Powerpoint pitches: A powerpoint presentation should have 10 slides, last 20 minutes and contain no font smaller than 30 points. Guy Kawasaki goes on to state that:

“The closest real-world analogy to raising money, whether you are seeking it from venture capitalists, angel investors, or the three Fs (friends, fools, and family), is speed dating. That’s right: In five minutes, people decide if they are interested in you, just as in bars and nightclubs. This isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, but it’s reality.”

The MaRS Initiative in Toronto (an Innovation Park connecting entrepreneurs, businesses and investors) published a set of entrepreneur tools to help with the challenge of raising finance. The presentation, titled 'What VC's want and why they call it Vulture Capital', is shown below. It gives you a good feel for what VCs look for, what it looks like to get an investment and the strings that the money tends to be attached to.

The morale: think big and start honing those negotiation skills.

What VCs Want (and why they call it 'Vulture Capital')

View more presentations from MaRS Discovery District.

Mobile World Congress 2010-#mwc10 Summary Part 2

Time precludes me from going into more detail about my Mobile World Congress experience, but as a second part of my earlier post, here are some observations about the past event:

NOTABLE ABSENCES

It was widely announced prior to the Congress that Nokia (and later LG) would be absent as exhibitors at the event. Nokia's cheeky move was to locate their Barcelona event HQ 100m from the entrance to the show at the ONCE Building on Gran Via. It is anyone's guess whether this actually was a money-saver (hiring a whole building is not cheap) but perhaps the bigger irony of the location was lost on others. In fact, the ONCE building is the Spanish Association for the Blind. Given Nokia's loss of traction in the key smartphone market, it was perhaps apt that they should be headquartered in a 'blind spot'.

LG's absence was hard to understand, but allowed Samsung to take all the glory from fans of Korean technology. Their App Store strategy is even more baffling, as LG launched a LiMo App Store (in some countries) but is looking to scrap that for a more generic store.

Another notable absentee was Palm.Those present last year, will have witnessed a great hoo-hah over their Palm Pre..clearly, all is not well at Palm, as they were near-invisible at this year's event

IT'S GOOGLE TIME!

It was to be expected. Google stole a great deal of the limelight at the show. Partly, it was the excitement caused by the NexusOne giveway (want to get developers frothing with excitement for hours?Give them a new bit of hardware to play with!). Partly, it was Eric Schmidt's captivating keynote speech, where he laid a clear stake in the ground (and is continuing to do so in Abu Dhabi at the Abu Dhabi Media Show) when it comes to mobile. Simply put, Google is now placing mobile at the centre of its strategy.Could not be clearer than that. Everyone else playing in the yard has been warned!

XConnect looking to dominate IP Interconnectivity

BARCELONA -I met Eli Katz, XConnect CEO, during the Mobile World Congress two weeks ago, for a priviliged insight into the VOIP star that is looking to shine bright in the new universe of digital voice and IP communications.

Eli discussed some of the XConnect's innovative products and enthused over HD voice. Today's analogue calls lead to a deterioration of sound quality which is notable to VOIP users when they make peer-to-peer calls (as on Skype, for example). With HD voice, intonations are much clearer and the jump from analogue to HD voice can be compared to that between mono- and stereo- sound: once you upgrade, you don't feel like going back.

XConnect also signed a deal last year under the GSMA Pathfinder initiative to enable interoperability between mobile operators and fixed telephony registries. This basically opens up next generation IP networks to telcos with legacy network infrastructure.

With Tier 1 VC funding of $22m, XConnect is well positioned for further growth as it seeks to out-compete companies like Synverse in its key markets of South Korea, Netherlands, USA and South Africa.

Mobile Solutions @ the NAB Show in Las Vegas

There have been some rapid changes over the last few years that those in the digital broadcasting community face. The 2010 NAB Show is the place to discover new opportunities for all those in the broadcaster world.

The NAB Show is coming up on April 10-15 in Las Vegas.

For a taste of what the 2010 NAB Show has to offer, check out what Destination Broadband and the Broader casting Conference has to offer in 2010 and discover the latest trends and gadgets in broadband technology.

In particular, Destination Broadband will feature the latest in mobile technologies, including mobile video, networks, and content delivery.A must for anyone in the mobile media distribution space.

Destination Broadband: See site here
Broader-casting Conference: See site here

Oh, and just because you are reading my blog, I’m giving out a code for FREE ACCESS to the exhibit floor at the show. This free Exhibits Only pass includes:

- Access to the Opening Keynote and State of the Industry Address
- Info Sessions
- Content Theater & Destination Broadband Theater

Visit here to redeem or register here with the code A913 (and feel free to pass this along).

You can check out more information and register on the official show website here

Mobile World Congress 2010 (#mwc10) Summary

BARCELONA-With the MWC maelstrom over, now is a good time for me to reflect on last week's show and share my thoughts about the experience.

This was my fourth Mobile World Congress and while it may not put me in the Veterans Club (and my repeated meetings with mobilists from the 'Cannes days' made me keenly aware of this), it does give me some insight into how the mobile ecosystem is evolving, at least since the dawn of the 'Mobile 2.0' days.

Overall, attendance was probably lower than last year and the fill-rate of the trade floor was below 100%, but this was no surprise. What surprised me was the general positive feeling (especially compared to last year) amongst participants that 'the worst was over'. In fact, the show was buzzier than many people had expected and there was clear evidence that while some incumbents were still in the doldrums (read mobile operators), newcomers were seeing decent growth (read content developers).

The App Planet may have been physically located at the far end of the show but in terms of buzz, it sat squarely in the centre of the show. Ok, there were some companies in Hall 7 that could only loosely be associated with Apps, but it was here that the various developer conferences took place and that the smaller, innovative content companies were to be found.

The WipJam event on the last day of the show tackled many of the challenges facing developers in the increasingly competitive world of apps (kudos to Caroline & the team for a great event):

-how do you get your app to be discovered
- how do you monetize your apps
- how do you create addictive apps
-how do you sell cross-platform

and many more issues.

I took part in two discussion groups on ‘Marketing Apps’ and ‘Features of Addictive Apps’. Both were extremely valuable. From the first one, I took away some interesting points on 'app discoverability' using Pinch/Flurry tools as well as a pointer to the presentation below from Mobile Monday Silicon Valley:

Mobile Monday Silicon Valley App Store Secrets Increasing Sales Feb 8 2010

View more presentations from mario tapia.

...to be continued...

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.