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Between the Mobile Advertising U.K. research project and interviews for MSG's own global mobile advertising reference work (more about that in future posts), I'm naturally eager to connect with the companies and the brands that set the bar. (If you have a story you would like me to consider for the projects I mentioned, or you just want to share your news with the growing MSG community of mobile operators, influencers, senior executives, and decision-makers, I encourage you to contact me directly or email my PA Andrea Henninge to set up a briefing (andrea@msearchgroove.com). A company that has caught my attention, with a potentially path-breaking approach to location-based advertising, is BipBip, the brainchild of Lasse Larsen, Chairman of the Board, WIS International. (Wireless Information Services). The company - headquartered in Riga, Latvia - has an impressive stockpile of patents around the service, and ambitious plans to launch BipBip worldwide (including the U.S., China, India and 21 cities across Europe) following a successful pilot in Denmark last month. (My personal thanks to Lasse for contacting me on Twitter (@peggyanne) and for giving MSG the exclusive.) What is BipBip? On paper the ad-funded service fulfills the criteria mobile advertising evangelists Andrew Grill and Jonathan MacDonald would no doubt agree are essential to delivering effective advertising services. I'm thinking here of the 3Ps: Permission (people will decide what brand messages they interact with); Privacy (people will decide where their data is collected and how it is used); and Preference (people will decide what content they find relevant). But the real differentiator is an even cleverer feature that turns greed-is-good bargain hunting into a mission to make the world a better place.

Regular readers will recall that MSG has partnered with bnetTV to cover industry events such as CTIA and, more recently, Mobile World Congress (MWC). The team did an awesome job, producing 200+ interviews. I focused on analysis, and conducted some 20 interviews with senior executives at companies including abphone, BuzzCity, Movius, Gracenote, Mob4Hire, GyPSii, AdMob, BuddyMob, Gigafone, BubbleMotion, Visto, JumpTap, and SurfKitchen (in no particular order). From JumpTap's mobile advertising strategy, to Gracenote's new music search and share features, to SurfKitchen's widget launch, the video interviews are a valuable knowledge resource. Today marks the debut of these new segments on the MSG video jukebox (located in the right-hand sidebar). This week's focus, and feature video in the player, is my interview with Shane Lennon, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Product Development at GyPSii, a must-watch company leading in the race to deliver connected and cool experiences combining information, entertainment, social networks, and location/navigation. In our interview we connect the dots in the recent string of announcements and discuss the significance for brands and advertisers. Indeed, it's the raft of announcements over the last weeks -- including a partnership to embed GyPSii's app on a range of LG mobile phones; the tie-up with Nokia and RIM (blackberry) to make the app available on a wide variety of their devices; and a wise decision launch an open API (allowing partners to call the shots on how they integrate GyPSii into their mobile strategy and devices) - that speaks volumes about the company's new and stronger focus. My take: GyPSii has both the ideas and the impetus to impact our mobile lifestyles. In addition to the interview and my analysis (below), I also encourage you to read more about GyPSii in my regular column for the bnetTV newsletter, which counts some 10,000 readers. For all my coverage and columns in one place, check out this page on the bnetTV site dedicated to MSG news and views. Thanks again to bnetTV's Michelle and Tony Sklar for promoting MSG to their growing audience of industry executives and professionals, and to Nicole Scott for bringing it all together in some great brainstorming sessions!