Qualcomm » mobilegroove

UPDATE: The deadline for submissions is extended to today. It's also an excellent opportunity for all the super-cool personalization and content discovery companies to shine!

I know and cover many of you on MSG - and encourage you to get involved. They've been dubbed the 'Oscars of the mobile world' – and the title fits. The Meffys (Mobile Entertainment Awards) are indeed the mobile industry's recognized benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation. That's why MSG is particularly proud to be a media partner and why I am honored the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has asked

Just tying up loose ends and pinning down last interviews before I'm off to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (MWC). If you haven't booked a video interview with me or Michelle Sklar, then best to start planning for CTIA in March because all the slots (over 200!) for coverage are full.

However, there are some limited sponsorship opportunities available allowing companies placement through in-video overlay, logos and other promotion formats. It's an excellent way to reach an audience of over 1 million viewers. (All MWC interviews will be aired on bnetTV’s website, as well as over 150 other web and social media sites (including MSG), that are part of bnetTV's larger partner network.

Editor's note: A range of content discovery issues continue to plague mobile operators and content companies on-portal. Add the explosion of content off-portal and the advance of applications stores and finding (and buying) what we like can be like looking for a proverbial needle in hay stack.

Regular readers will recall that I am sharply focused on tools/technologies and companies providing personalization and recommendations solutions to mobile operators and content owners. My passion stems from my own ongoing research into content discovery and – more recently – work on a new report on mobile personalization and recommendation. (If you are a company in this space, then I invite you to contact me directly.)

In brief: A sneak peek at my upcoming personalization report and a request for case studies. The second in the series on mobile personalization examines Openwave and features an exclusive Q&A with Mayur Pitamber, Openwave Product Management Strategist. We ask the question: Is Openwave gearing up for something big? It was great to have the last days off and even better to map out an exciting line-up of MSearchGroove projects for the next months. One that I am particularly honored to announce: my collaboration with GigaOM Pro, the new research arm of the highly-respected tech blog GigaOM. By way of background, GigaOM Pro has brought together an impressive roster of industry authorities and analysts (including my esteemed colleague Chetan Sharma) to "address the gap that exists in real-time expert industry analysis on emerging technology markets." The GigaOM Pro solution: Make timely, highly relevant analysis and insights accessible and practical. I'm on board to write an in-depth examination of personalization and recommendation technologies and business models, a natural next step given my long track record analyzing mobile search and my deep involvement in the recommender space. (This includes work with Strands, a major provider of recommender systems, on recommender industry events including RecSys 09 - October 22-25, NYC.) The report is an ambitious undertaking and I am naturally interested in connecting with personalization/recommendation companies –so please contact me directly if you wish to be considered for inclusion. peggy@msearchgroove.com Why the buzz about personalization? The advance of Internet-specific smartphones and the spread of app store schemes turns up the pressure mobile operators (and their content providers) to decipher data transactions (on and off the network), combine it with location and demographic data and use the results to create a 360-degree view of the individual. Where does this shift leave mobile operators?

Several weeks into MSG'S exciting line-up of mobile industry projects (mobile advertising and mobile search), and I am impressed by the pivotal importance the majority of interviewees place on context. Whether it's advertising or contextual search, the new business mantra is personalization. It's all about delivering the right advertising/content/app/results to the right person in the right context. But this time it's more than warm-and-fuzzy lip-service. This time it's hard-nosed business. Two developments - flat sales of more traditional mobile entertainment offers such as games and ringtones (albeit at a high level), and the phenomenal popularity of apps and app stores - exacerbate the content discovery dilemma, forcing companies and operators alike to admit that better personalization is a must if higher revenues are the goal. Last week I directed your attention to this excellent column from Mark Lowenstein, who drives home a point the significance of which I cannot overstate: "The most important way to differentiate in this growing but increasingly crowded market is to deliver a more personalized, contextual applications experience." He was referring to app stores, where we are forced to sift through thousands of apps. (Déjà vu! It was our frustration with scrolling up and down mobile operator portals and hierarchical menus that opened the door for a variety of mobile search and content discovery solutions and providers that promised to take the pain out of finding and buying content.) Put simply, personalization is not just central to app store schemes. It is critical to the delivery of content and advertising we will likely appreciate because it is in tune with our lifestyles (through profiling) as well as the important clues we leave behind though our browsing behavior, purchase patterns, and download history. (JumpTap, for example, has built a business connecting the dots between these data points to match relevant advertising to relevant consumer segments. As this MSG post recounts, the company first released tapLink, a platform that builds targeting intelligence from multiple sources including search queries, browsing history, demographic and location data, and then followed up with the recent launch of tapMatch, its pay-per-click (PPC) performance mobile ad marketplace.) As I have written many times on MSG, the new paradigm is personalized content-push based on a deep understanding of the individual. It's even more compelling if the technology can learn users' likes and dislikes over time to dynamically and consistently deliver the right content mix. One company making its mark is Xiam Technologies, a Qualcomm company that I have tracked from the start. I recently caught up with Colm Healy, Xiam CEO, in a video interview to discuss the role of recommendation and personalized discovery techniques. Xiam worked with Stuart Willett, who heads up MSG Media Solutions, and the film crew we assembled for the project to co-create the video I am proud to showcase in the MSG video player. (My personal thanks to Martin Clancy, Xiam Marketing Manager, for arranging the interview, and to Curtis Shmigelsky and the rest of the great people at bnetTV for including it in MSG video jukebox!) I encourage you to check out the video interview in the sidebar. A highlight: Colm's comments on the opportunities in personalization for mobile operators. As he puts it: "Mobile is a uniquely personal device and if you [operator/service provider] aren't taking advantage of that by building in recommendations and personalized discovery techniques, you're missing a beat."