February » 2009 » mobilegroove

Thanks to Andrea Henninge and Stuart Willett, who heads up MSG Media Solutions, this next Mobile World Congress is shaping up to be the best so far! My schedule is packed with briefings, speaking engagements (such as the Qualcomm's Plaza Mobile Internet Forum), and a string of video interviews I'm conducting together with MSG's own in-house film crew. Slots are going fast - so if you would like to learn more please contact Stuart Willett directly - sw@morianamediagroup.com or mobile: +44 7734 315 506. MSG is also proud to partner with bnetTV to conduct studio interviews with an exciting line-up of companies including AdMob, BuddyMob, BuzzCity,Gigafone, Gracenote, GyPSii, JumpTap, MCN, Mob4Hire, Movius, and VISTO. The finished segments will showcase on MSG (in the customized video player in the right-hand corner), so please check back regularly. You can also look for event coverage - as well as my regular columns - on this special Events page bnetTV created exclusively for MSG. Which brings me to this week's column and focus on Motricity, a provider of mobile data solutions and services, ranging from mobile portals and storefronts, to messaging aggregation, to a slew of mobile operators and content providers, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Alltel, TracFone Wireless, PlayPhone, CNN, FOX News, A&E, and Condé Nast. The company had a banner year in 2008. But the real news is mobile marketing, a sector Ryan Wuerch, Motricity Chairman and CEO, tells me is poised for impressive growth.

I'm back with Part 2 of my favorite podcast, an interview with Tom Huseby, Managing Partner, SeaPoint Ventures, that also marks the start of MSG's new series of interviews with VCs and early-stage and emerging startups. In fact, I'm in touch with the great line-up of 20 early-stage and emerging startups presenting at the Mobile Peer Awards (which I also judge) for similar podcasts and hope to circle back with the best and brightest of the pack after the event. In the meantime, I encourage you to listen in to Tom, who offers entrepreneurs valuable advice and the inside track on the mobile companies and concepts highest on his radar. Some good news in these challenging economic times: There is plenty of money and opportunity, but it's up to entrepreneurs to structure their good ideas so VCs get it. What pitches are getting the most traction? The Apple App Store and similar schemes from Google (Android), RIM at one end of the spectrum and Qualcomm and Amdocs at the other (check next week for an MSG exclusive on Amdocs app store strategy) have - as Tom put it - "changed the entrepreneurial landscape." Open systems, open storefronts and open operators. Now all we need is the apps.

An exclusive interview with Noam Raffaelli, managing director of Plaza for Qualcomm Internet Services, and a look at Qualcomm's upcoming and exclusive event during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. I am honored to participate in the Plaza Mobile Internet Forum in Barcelona (my presentation explores mobile Internet strategies and what media companies can do to take advantage of the widget opportunity). But the real news is the crowd of major publishers and brands, including Amazon, Turner Broadcasting System, and Universal McCann, I will address, and a special guest whose identity I have promised to not yet divulge. In the course of conducting interviews with some 35 industry movers and shakers for the Netsize Guide - an in-depth analysis of the mobile industry - I learned that, across the board, senior executives viewed the march of Internet giants such as Google into mobile, and the advance of handset makers such as Apple and Nokia into content and apps, as more of a cause for concern than celebration. Qualcomm takes a different approach, crafting a one-of-a-kind mobile Internet strategy that allows mobile operators to control their own apps store - and their destiny. What's next for Qualcomm? In the run up to Mobile World Congress (MWC), I caught up with Noam Raffaelli, managing director of Plaza for Qualcomm Internet Services, to discuss the evolution of Plaza (and how it can be leveraged as a monetization platform); the role of widgets; and the increased focus on mobile advertising. Special thanks to Richard George, Qualcomm account manager at Hill & Knowlton, for arranging the briefing.

STUDY: Common sense tells us click-through rates (CTRs) on personalized advertising should exceed CTRs on more random [translated: less relevant] mobile advertising, but here is an important data point direct from Telenor R & I, the research arm of the Telenor Group, and Mobile Content Networks, a provider of mobile search management, search merchandising, and PPC content promotion solutions, to back it up. The companies teamed up in Norway along with MADS, a European mobile advertising technology provider, and Aspiro, a Scandinavian mobile content provider, to evaluate the effectiveness of federated mobile search - an approach that blends results from a variety of content sources and search engines - and personalized advertising. Findings from the pilot tell us that CTRs for personalized ads "exceeded those for random ads by a 3:1 ratio."

With all the interest in the new MSG series of podcasts with VCs and industry-watchers, the timing is perfect to promote the Mobile Peer Awards, a must-attend event on February 16 in Barcelona (during Mobile World Congress) that brings together 20 early-stage and emerging startups. The finalists, chosen from 100+ companies nominated by each chapter of MobileMonday (a staggering 67 chapters entered their favorite local startups this time around), have the opportunity to present their elevator pitch to a panel of judges from companies including AdMob, Amdocs Venture Investments, Balderton Capital, France Telecom/Orange Group, Telefónica R&D, and Yahoo. I'm also proud to announce that I have been asked to judge the awards, and greatly look forward to connecting with the candidate companies.