Mobile Groove

In brief: A rundown of upcoming projects, a call to developers and publishers to submit their coolest ad-enabled mobile website, application or game for consideration and compete for the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2009; and a reminder to check out a new mobile advertising white paper explaining the nuts and bolts of ad optimization.

Mobile advertising is the topic of the week at MSearchGroove. I’m attending the Mobile Marketing Forum Europe in Berlin; MSearchGroove has joined forces with research firm ÆNEAS Strategy to partner with the Mobile Marketing Association and undertake the organization’s first pan-European research project examining the attitudes of mobile buyers; and Smaato, a pioneering mobile advertising company that operates a leading mobile ad optimization platform, has launched Mobile Advertising Award 2009, thus kicking of the search among the world’s developers and publishes for outstanding innovation.

After the success of competition last year, Smaato is back with a bigger and better Mobile Advertising Award 2009. As Harald Neidhardt, Smaato CMO & Co-Founder put it: “With more than 100 entrants in its first year we could not ask for more positive feedback. We think this is a clear indictor that there is a lot of creativity and positive energy in the ecosystem. The best is yet to come!”

This year, the competition is divided into three categories of ad-enabled mobile solutions: iPhone, mobile website and applications, and games running on all other platforms. Participation is free and you can learn more about the application procedure here.

Deadline for submissions is October 9th. The winner will be announced at the Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on October 15th.

The winning companies in each category will be invited to attend Mobile World Congress, the leading mobile industry event, in Barcelona (February 15-18). In addition, Smaato will introduce these innovative publishers and developers to VC’s at the partner level. Other prizes include a booth at the hugely successful mobile industry event M-Days in Munich (January 28-29, 2010) and free event tickets.

MSearchGroove is proud to be a media partner and – on a personal note – I am honored to be named to the panel of judges.

In brief: MSearchGroove proudly steps up to the plate and hosts the Carnival of the Mobilists for the first time.

The last weekend in August and I spent much of it at a two-day summer festival in Siegburg, Germany, where I’m based. I’ve been on a natural high with good friends, great food and a wonderful line-up of home-grown entertainment. But not all the excitement was at the local fairgrounds. The Mobilists have also come up with a mix of thought leadership and must-read posts that give us new perspectives on mobile and start our adrenalin flowing.

Andy Favell and the team at mobiThinking.com do us all a great service and compile a comprehensive list of mobile industry facts and figures. The first in this series focuses on the size of the mobile Web and the implications for marketers. What do the numbers tell us? Should investors/companies take advantage of the economic slowdown and move ahead while others are standing still? Read on, find out and tell us what you think.

Another round of important mobile stats comes from Jose Colucci at Mobile Strategy, who continues the countdown of the 12 Reasons Why Canadian Banks Should Really Offer Mobile Services.

In brief: App stores are hot, but what are the challenges and where is the opportunity? This analysis draws from a variety of sources – including a recent Airwide Solutions survey, an exclusive interview with Vodafone UK’s Jonathan Kelly, and a thought-provoking post from Alfred DeRose, Co-founder & Managing Director of Tego Interactive, a Web and mobile product and services company providing development and integrated solutions for the needs of major brands, content publishers and mobile network operators – to provide some practical answers.

App store frenzy? That’s what comes across when you connect the dots in the raft of recent announcements. Mobile operators ranging from U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless (which has borrowed a page from parent company Vodafone to launch a carrier-wide app store based on Java ME that can target more than one device) to China Mobile (which tells TelecomAsia.net that it’s moving full-steam ahead on its Mobile Market app store where it plans to take 50 percent cut of app sales revenues) are jockeying for position and a piece of the action.

Interestingly, much of the operator excitement centers on the new mobile advertising opportunity app stores represent. As Jonathan Kelly, who heads up Vodafone UK Marketing, recently told me in a briefing: “I see some quite interesting opportunities in apps and widgets. A likely scenario could involve a sponsored widget, where the brand actually works with us to create a widget or application that we then prominently place in our app store.”

Beyond that, Jonathan sees other opportunities around actually embedding advertising within a widget. “You could have some sort of utility widget that’s providing weather, and there’s no reason why certain relevant companies may not wish to have some advertising embedded within that.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Apple’s App Store, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Android’s Marketplace may have been the first to the party, but they have company. The recent JavaOne conference kicked off its annual convention by opening the doors of the Java App Store, a global marketplace for Java apps headed by Sun Microsystems. It comes on the heels of other app store news elsewhere in the industry including Nokia’s launch of the Ovi app store, a storefront offering available in Australia, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ireland and the U.K, offering 20,000 titles (a fraction of which are apps) to an estimated 50 million Nokia devices globally.

Will 2009 be the year of mobile advertising? In Germany the question isn’t associated with market hype; it’s linked to the realization that the climate and conditions are right in Germany for mobile marketing to finally and formally take-off. Gone are many of the legal and business hurdles that have stifled ideas and innovation, paving the way for home-grown mobile marketing companies – such as MindMatics AG, Netbiscuits GmbH, Smaato Inc., and YOC AG – to take their place among international giants. This overview names companies and some interesting stats – thanks again to Mark (“Mr. Mobile”) Waechter, independent media consultant and head of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in Germany.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) introduced me to some exciting German companies sure to leave their mark on mobile. Some (such as the amazing aki-aki) I met during my day judging the Mobile Peer Awards (the winner in the Emerging Startups category was Popcatcher, a Swedish company set to do for radio what TiVo did for TV). Others I connected with at the reception held by Smaato to announce the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2008 (which was DialPlus, by the way) and finalist companies: aka-aki, buzzd, Fishlabs, fring, FunkySexyCool, Peperoni, Qeep, Skout, TourSpot and Vayyoo.

I also had a deliciously disruptive discussion with Harald Neidhardt, Smaato CMO & Co-Founder, during which I also learned more about m.LOVE, a path-breaking group of “mobile passionistas” Harald has brought together to discuss the future of mobile and ways how “mobile advertising, mobile social communities and the society find solutions to be more engaging in the mobile media of the future.”