Best & Brightest: COM #207 Amazon Gets Physical (?); Passion & Infolust; The Smartphonosphere; Comparing Ad Networks PLUS COM #206 Recap » mobilegroove

This week the Carnival of the Mobilists (COM) brings the best of mobile blogging to Volker Hirsch over at Volker on Mobile. Regular Mobilists – including Russell Buckley from MobHappy, Mark Jaffe from Mobile Mandala, Andy Favell from mobiThinking and WIP Jam — submitted a thought-provoking selection of posts.

How can/should brands monetize our passion? What happens when cloud computing shifts app development to the Web? Will Amazon have to offer us an in-store experience? And how do the mobile ad networks really stack up? Read on and find out!

Volker didn’t provide his pick of the posts, so allow me to present mine. My vote goes to mobiThinking for consistently providing valuable resources and how-to guides. This time it’s a look at the latest mobile ad metrics reports from AdMob, Millennial Media, Quattro Wireless, BuzzCity, InMobi and Smaato, which made its debut this month with the Smaato Mobile Advertising Metrics. The new report reveals for the first time a Click Through Rate (CTR) Index by handset operating system. It also shows a comparison of mobile ad network fill rates (worldwide and U.S.) and found that Quattro Wireless (recently acquired by Apple) and Millennial Media are the top performing mobile ad networks in the U.S. (More in the MSG DATA POINTS stats pack later this week.)

Great job Andy!

Thanks also to Andy for hosting COM #206 over at mobiThinking last week in my place, allowing me to attend client meetings, complete the Netsize Guide and navigate London during some horrible snow storms. As Andy put it: it was a “baptism by fire” – but the results did throw off some interesting sparks (!)

COM #206 showcased thought leadership from a great line-up of Mobilists, including Antoine RJ Wright, Tomi Ahonen, Ajit Jaokar, Judy Breck at Golden Swamp, Mark Jaffe at  Mobile Mandala, and Caroline Lewko and Thibaut Rouffineau over at WIPJam.

Are smartphones really innovative? Who will win the battle for smartphone market supremacy in 2010 and beyond? Does Google’s Nexus One change all the rules (and the ecosystem)? Are app stores “soooo 1980s”? How could tablet PCs be harnessed for education? What are the 2010 predictions highest on developers’ radars? Read on and find out!

BTW: registration is now open for WIPJam at Mobile World Congress (MWC). Caroline tells me that she has 200 MWC passes to give away to eligible developers that attend WIPJam. (That’s a value of €500 – so a good deal indeed!)

The Jam takes place Thursday, February 18, and you can find out more here.

And finally, my usual call for contributions and contributors.

Regular readers will know that I now keep the tents at the Carnival. (Put another way, I coordinate the COM and ways to grow its reach and influence.) If you are interested in joining, hosting or sharing your ideas, please contact me directly (peggy@msearchgroove.com). You can also follow COM on Twitter (@COTMobilists).

Tags: AdMob, Amazon, app developer, BuzzCity, Carnival Of The Mobilists, COM, InMobi, Millennial Media, Mobile Adveritising, mobile analytics, MWC, Quattro Wireless, smartphone

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Carnival Of The Mobilists, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Research, Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.