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The Netsize Guide 2010 is also creating a stir at CTIA, where several fans have asked me for a copy. But at 200+ pages it really wasn't the ideal hand luggage to bring on the trip. Instead, MSG and Netsize move on to Part 2 in the ongoing series to showcase a “best of” selection of executive interviews and hot topics that have everyone talking. On the heels of the fantastically successful SXSW conference, there's a sharp focus on figuring out how companies can move from meeting place to market place – and make money in the process.

Flirtomatic is certainly a company that provides a blueprint.

The popularity of location-based services applications - particularly their top-notch position in a variety of app stores - indicates that location apps are crowd-pleasers, but are they really game-changing? Nate Janewit - an MSG columnist and a computer scientist at Stanford University sharply focused on the larger issues around LBS - suggests companies need to think differently about location in order to wring more value out of their vast stores of data. The recent report on trends in location-aware apps from Apple's App Store, Google's Android Marketplace, and Blackberry's App World released by Skyhook Wireless, itself a provider of a patented hybrid system of location awareness, reveals a buoyant market for LBS apps. Indeed, the Apple App Store was found to have the greatest number of location-based applications, at over 2,300, and the highest percentage of paid for location apps, at over 75 percent. 67 percent of Blackberry apps are paid, and 80 percent of Android Marketplace apps are free. Clearly, location apps are popular, as their increasing ubiquity and popularity across a variety of app stores demonstrates. But move past the hype and the excitement generated by the flurry of activity in the space, and it becomes clear that location services - by themselves - are not game-changing. Location-aware data is not enough Indeed, mobile location-based services and social networking companies such as Loopt, Pelago, and Sense Networks have invested a great deal to achieve their vision, which revolves around the provision of an array of consumer and community services supported by socially-tagged, location-aware data stores. The data they have is impressive and the expansion plans they pursue are ambitious. However, they also face formidable competition from Internet giants (Google, MySpace, Facebook, and Yelp) that have already aggregated their own large sets of useful social content, and are anxious to extend their reach to mobile. Can companies compete on location data? Many players are positioning themselves to do just this. However, I submit that location services - and the structures and systems in place to deliver them - represent little more than an incremental innovation on top of the immense stockpiles of location data and content that are largely under the control of established Web companies and heavyweights. As a result, these Web giants are well-positioned to leverage location data to mobilize their offers and ultimately dominate the marketplace. There are, however, options and strategies mobile location services companies can employ to win the game - even though, as I argue in this is column, location services on their own are far from game-changing. Admittedly, not everyone shares my view. Sam Altman, founder of Loopt, told me in a recent interview that he strongly believes in the value of innovation in location-based services and their central position in personal mobility experiences. A prime example is the company's iPhone app. Loopt's Mix feature enables users -without compromising their personal privacy - to connect with other users nearby. What's more, users can find places nearby on Yelp and find what their friends on Loopt are saying about those places. Beyond this interesting user experience, Loopt's location-related content is thin, and therefore isn't terribly useful - yet. However, it's not so much the company's progress with their service offering that interests me as much as its business priorities.

SMARTPHONES ACCOUNTED FOR ALMOST THREE TIMES more usage than their relative market share, according to AdMob's April 2009 Mobile Metrics Report.The report compared usage of mobile websites to usage of HTML sites on mobile devices and found the relative usage of both to be highest on Apple and Android devices. The iPhone's OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, yet generated 43 percent of mobile web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage. Ad requests from applications are said to have contributed to this heavy usage. Source The bottom line: As illustrated numerous times within this section, the data dominance and superior browsing experience allowed by smartphones is undeniable. Making mobile Web user experience smooth, easy, and compelling - as these handsets often do - is shown to consistently drive mobile data traffic. That many consumers probably can't tell and don't care about the difference between mobile websites and HTML sites is also testament to technical developments. *** GARTNER SAYS THE NUMBER OF MOBILE PAYMENT users will increase by 70 percent this year. Its report claims that 73.4 million users of mpayment in 2009 would represent a leap of 70.4 percent from 2008. By 2012, it says mobile payment will reach more than 190 million, more than 3 percent of total mobile users worldwide, attaining a level at which it will be considered "mainstream." Gartner defines a mobile payment as paying for a product or service using mobile technology such as a short message service (SMS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), and Near Field Communication (NFC). It includes transactions that use cash, bank accounts or debit and credit cards, as well as non-carrier stored value accounts, such as travel cards, gift cards or PayPal. It does not include transactions that use mobile operators' billing systems, such as purchase of mobile content or telebanking by mobile to the service center via an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Source The bottom line: Although the definition of mobile payment is ambiguous here, these figures demonstrate that the mass market is slowly growing confident in using their mobile to pay for and transfer money. Much effort has been made to foster consumer confidence in the micropayment mobile payment space, and the adoption of mobile banking technologies still varies drastically from region to region. There are regulatory and security challenges to overcome, particularly with the emergence of NFC technologies, but these figures give strong reason for hope. *** SPEECH APPLICATIONS ARE TO TRIPLE by 2014 according to a new Datamonitor report. The report claims that as we get used to using mobile computing devices in 'hands-busy', 'eyes-busy' environments, speech recognition technologies are expected to gain considerable traction. The global market for advanced

The first signs of discontent are appearing among the Twitterati, and this time it's not to do with the fail whale, Twitter's crash page, that tells us twitter has once again failed. It goes much deeper that than. Is there a point when a social network becomes too big? Sure looks like there is - and we may have reached it.

How viable is mobile advertising in an economic slowdown? How will the current economy impact businesses that derive revenues from mobile advertising? Can mobile advertising count on VC funding?

These were just a few of the key questions that thought leaders, startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers debated during Mobile 2.0 in San Francisco.

The mobile conference – organized by the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee ( Daniel Appel…