A few notes on from the biggest mobile communications show of the year.
- Innovative start-ups are still coming out
- New user experiences in personal communications
- Tapas-enabled networking strong as ever
The other side of MWC, at Palau Musica, I sat on a jury panel with other industry colleagues :Peggy Anne Salz, of MSearch Groove, Carlos Domingo, Telefonica R&D, Ariel Efrati, Venture Investments, James Whatley, from Spinvox. Mobile Peer Awards complements GSMA's Global Mobile Awardsbecause it focuses on early-stage startups and more informal reviews. You save 500 euros but you'll miss Jamie Cullum at the price giving ceremony. Both awards are nice however. We had an interesting debate after hearing pitches from "emerging start-ups" on communications, content, advertising business models and new devices. Here are some comments on our selection :
PopCatcher from Sweden got our jury award: their pitch is that mobiles should get fresh music every day freely and legally. How many of you have downloaded music last week without checking the rights? Well PopCatcher will listen radio for you, record it and split it into songs in your collection automatically. Our jury debated quite a bit whether that would please the record companies and their layers but anyway we liked having a TiVo of radio. Here is their value proposal:
fring from Tel Aviv won the MoMo community award : 500,000 new users per month worldwide deserves an applause. fringsters talk, chat, and interact with online communities (Facebook, Skype®, MSN®, GoogleTalk, Twitter, and Yahoo!) And fring have done operators deals such as 3UK, Mobilcom. That could have been our jury's choice as an "investor", but we decided that our vote would not add so much value to an already existing success.
Unkasoft Advergaming from Madrid won the audience award: they develop in-games advertising on top of popular video games - they really look at advertising from an end-user usability perspective and have business agreements with Microsoft and others; Perhaps the most important was the fun pitch that Jaime Lanchares, founder and CEO did on stage. This could give ideas to other entrepreneurs.
Aradiom from Istanbul, they provide a portfolio of mobile solutions developed using their own application environment - proven with 400K users; but our jury failed to detect the unique differentiation.
Getjar Networks Lithuania: we all love Getjar's appstore with 10,000 free mobile applications and over 20 million downloads per month; but with so many app stores around our jury foresaw some clouds ahead.
Keynetik from Washington DC: they provide motion SDK and applications for accelerometer enabled mobile; the jury had doubt about the success of the business model, but I like the “rock'n scroll" demo they have on done for the N95.
Mobintech A/S from Copenhagen: the company delivers display glasses to watch live Mobile TV; our jury missed a unique mobile proposition and a differentiation with competitors.
Soonr from Silicon Valley: they offer simple, secure cloud computing file management (35 types) across device (including iPhone, PCs and net printers) and networks, targeting SMB in particular; the jury agreed it's a great value but perhaps in risk of commoditisation.
In the start-up category, with a different jury team, Babajob.com took both community and jury awards on the Monday night’s Mobile Peer Awards in Barcelona.
Babjobs.com from Bangalore : is job website and mobile portal dedicated to connecting informal sector workers - cooks, maids, drivers, guards, etc.- and employers to India ; it's great to see applications that encourage development and economy !
GSMA Mobile innovation global awards
Mobile innovation global award competition took place over the year. The winners are :
Cootek, China won the champion title: software keyboard to accelerate typing a super-charged T9
Intivation, Netherlands : solar panel charger on the back of handsets for developing countries
Mobile Nordic, Norway : mobile CLI including directory search, SMS previews
WorldMate, USA a travel itinerary management application with mobile alerts
New user experiences in personal communications
It's not really new but 7 years after MMS launch, the industry tries to deliver platforms from what users want (sharing with friends using phone address book and social network contacts). I liked the [5] user trials feedback presented during the GSMA RCS workshop, the cross-device demo by Victor Donselaar of Movial and Aude Pichelin from Orange who serves as RCS chair and announced some more cross-operators trials. Why would it succeed this time ? RCS has 60 companies involved, mobile IM adoption in BRIC countries exceeds 10%, mobile social networking exceeds 20% in the youth segment. But of course their are challenges : Nokia partnership with Skype, new solutions as Voxmobili' s social address book on Google's Android, Sony Ericsson's silence on RCS handset release dates.
Tapas-enabled networking strong as ever
Yes, I also love Barcelona tapas and side events : Swedish beers was crowded, Bel Chica GoMo News blender party with Benna Roberts full of insider information, Nokia party intimate and I got the chance to meet nice professionals like Sonia Jain of Bluegiga (just after she told "OPK" all about their brand as viewed by young women and certainly we avoided discussing Bluetooth access solutions). And coming-out of the sauna at Hotel 1898 to attend TechCrunchTalk panel on mobile eco-systems featuring Mike Butcher and Peter Vesterbacka was fun. See you next year at the same place...
